See Into Me
by Catheryne
Summary: Chloe, Lois, Clark, Lex. Set in the future. To Clark, Lois stole Chloe's life. To Lex, Lois killed Chloe. She doesn't know anymore.
1. Fix You

See Into Me

Catheryne

Part 1 Fix You

i_When you try your best but you don't succeed  
When you get what you want but not what you need  
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep  
Stuck in reverse_ /i

She looked up into the rearview mirror and blinked several times, then reached into her purse for a silvery green liner that complemented her eyes. She wiped a semicircle under her lower lashes. Her hair confused her. It had for sometime now. She opened the glove compartment and took a pin, then pulled up the hair into a bun at her nape. After retouching her lipgloss, she stepped out of the car and walked to the Daily Planet building with her purse and a box in her arms.

_iAnd the tears come streaming down your face  
When you lose something you cannot replace /i_

"Welcome to the Planet, Ms Lane," were the first words she heard from the security guard, who smiled and nodded at her, obviously informed by the one man inside she knew would be warm. She shuddered to think of the reaction she would get from the other one she knew.

She took a deep breath the moment she reached the pit. It was busy and everyone minded his own business of hurrying to the copier, passing paper along, cropping photographs. All her life she had dreamed of walking into the place in the capacity she was doing so now. She never thought it would be at the expense of someone she loved so much.

Her eyes fell onto the table filled with flowers. Red roses. Safe choice. Uninteresting and generic, she thought. If it was from Clark, she should be grateful. After everything, she didn't deserve a shaving from a thorn. She walked over to the desk that held the name, "LOIS LANE." She was going to be using this area then.

_iLights will guide you home  
And ignite your bones  
And I will try to fix you/i_

She reached for the single white card from one of the bouquets, and realized she was only dreaming when she supposed it could be from Clark Kent.

"Welcome back. Come to dinner with me. Lex Luthor," she read.

A twinge in her heart passed very quickly, then she crumpled the card. There was a trash bin under her table. Quickly, she bent down and tossed the offending scrap into it._iTears stream down your face  
When you lose something you cannot replace  
Tears stream down your face   
And I /i_

She took the very first item outside her cardboard box and stared at the photograph for several minutes. They were happy then. In it, she stared at her grinning cousin when their lives were as close to simple as they could be. They would have been a study of contrasts physically. They had such different goals in life, so many different dreams. Life threw curveballs and even suicide bombers along the way. In the end, it could turn out to be the direct opposite of all your plans.

Or it could give you everything you deserved.

_iTears stream down your face  
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes /i_

"Lois Lane!" a huge male voice exclaimed.

She placed the picture frame on the desk, right under the fluorescent shade created by the roses. Happy Chloe and Lois beamed from the wooden borders. She turned to face the editor, who had prepared her arrival.

"Perry!" she greeted. The older man went over to her and embraced her warmly. "Thank you so much for all this."

Perry White shook his head and patted her on the back. His eyes fell to the photo, then back at her. "Chloe Sullivan reminded me of the journalist I used to be when she was sixteen years old. Why do you think I dropped the sci fi monster crap and turned to real news? What's a place for her cousin on my staff?"

The footsteps she heard next were so familiar that she froze. Slowly, she turned her head and saw Clark Kent heading towards them—stalking as if he smelled prey. He stopped short and said in a low voice, "You're not Lois Lane."

"Clark," she choked out.

_iTears stream down your face  
And I /i  
_

"Everyone," Perry yelled, calling the attention of the newsmen and women in the pit, "I present to you the young woman who broke one of the most controversial international stories to hit the news this century—the Lipaztan government's genocide of the native inhabitants of its desert regions."

"Perry, it wasn't just my—" she started.

"Chloe Sullivan and Lois Lane traveled to Eastern Europe to uncover the crime, and it cost them. A few feet before they crossed the border out of hostile territory they were met by a suicide bomber car. One of them didn't survive and the other spent more than four month in the hospital recovering from the disfiguring incident. She stands before you now as one of our star reporters and a hero. Welcome her to the Daily Planet."

The words coming from Perry's mouth reminded her of the anguish of the deafening explosion, the burning pain, and the realization that she was going to die in another continent.

Soon enough, she realized that every single person in the office was applauding her.

Except for Clark Kent.

_iLights will guide you home  
And ignite your bones  
And I will try to fix you./i_

One by one, as everyone returned to their jobs, and Perry assured her that she could come to him at any time, she settled back in her seat. Clark bent to whisper into her ear, "I know what you did, Lois. Everyone else can think you're this hotshot reporter ready to save the world but I know who you really are."

"And what is that, Clark?" she asked.

"You're not who they think you are. You're taking over everything Chloe was. You didn't even know where Lipaztan was before the day you left. You never cared about journalism. I know why you're here." She closed her eyes. "You killed her, Lois. Now you're trying to make up for it by living her life."

She turned to glare at him. "I'm keeping her alive, Clark."

"How? You went there and you screwed it up, Lois. She'd be alive if it wasn't for you."

"She's alive in me, Clark. Someday you'll realize that."

As he looked at her, she saw the exact moment when it registered inside him. His brows cleared and his fury was replaced with disgust. "They told me about it, and I almost forgot. You have her eyes." She noted the way his throat worked, as if he was trying to swallow the bile that rose. "When you screwed up and sent that cell signal, and they knew where to attack you, the glass killed her and blinded you."

"I was hurt as much as she was," she defended. "Stop acting like I'm the reason she's gone."

"You are." Clark straightened and walked over to the other desk, then sat down. "Isn't this nice, Lois? Perry made us partners."

She shook her head and took out her notebooks and pens from her box, placing them neatly on the table. The phone beside her rang. She picked it up.

"This is Lois," she answered.

"Got my invite?" the voice on the other line rumbled.

"I don't want to see you."

"You owe me."

"I'll give you the money back."

"This is so much more than money, Lois. I sent you to get her, not kill her."

"Stop it," she hissed. "Can everyone just stop saying that!"

"Sooner or later, you're going to have to see me," Lex replied.

"I have nothing more to say to you," she answered, then replaced the phone on the handle.

She felt the steady gaze, and it made her uncomfortable. She looked up and saw Clark Kent staring at her. "Who was it?" he asked lazily.

She stared back at him, and they were Chloe's eyes, and Chloe's eyes in turn made him tense. He didn't like Chloe's eyes looking at him from an unfamiliar face. "We all have our secrets, don't we, Clark?"

tbc


	2. Hero

Part 2 Hero

One year ago, 2010

Her son was already fast asleep in the car seat when she arrived in LexCorp. Chloe reached for the toddler. "Sorry, baby," she cooed soothingly as the boy stirred in her arms. She rocked softly until the baby settled back and buried his nose in the crook of her neck.

Her heart thundered in her chest as she looked over towards the entrance, then stalked her way towards the reception area. "Where's Lex?" she asked with quiet fury.

"He's in his office, Ms Sullivan."

"Alright," she muttered. Her face was flushed, she knew. She could never hide her emotions the way Lex always could.

_iI am so high, I can hear heaven.  
I am so high, I can hear heaven.  
Oh but heaven, no heaven don't hear me./i  
_

She entered the elevator and pressed the key to take her to the top floor, where Lex's office was. He adored it there. It made him feel like a king and his high was to stand behind his glass walls overlooking Metropolis as if it were his kingdom. It had not worried her at first. And then it came, when she turned to him at night and thought she saw his father in his eyes.

It was the hunger, she supposed. There was hunger in his eyes. It was a hunger that she could do never quell.

On the year their son was born, tragedy struck. Two hundred and thirty four LexCorp employees were killed in a blazing fire that turned the Smallville plant to a pile of ashes.

"Chloe, there's more to it than an accident," Clark claimed that morning, when he dropped by her apartment.

She had turned to him and saw him hunkered down over the playpen, making a toy Superman doll fly right above her son's head. "What are you saying, Clark?"

His eyes fell to the folders he had brought along with him. "It's my latest scoop, and it's going on print tonight. I wanted to show you first."

Chloe followed his gaze and then walked over to the papers. With the thick folder in her hands, she glanced up at Clark. "Can you—"

He met her eyes and picked up the boy. "I'll take him down to the ice cream shop downstairs." Clark walked over to her and reached for Chloe, then placed a kiss on top of her head. "Are you sure you can do this? I can stay," he offered.

She leaned against him, then froze. "Clark, no. We can't do this. Not here." He saw her glance up at the corners of the ceiling.

"Is he taping you?"

"I don't know anymore," she confided. "Go. I want to do this alone."

And that was when she knew. More than two hundred people, including her own father, perished in another one of Lex's pet science projects. And he did not apologize to her, not really, not enough. She had been pregnant and orphaned but her fiancé had drifted further away, sucked into the abyss of discovery and invention.

Chloe had had enough. She was taking her son and leaving him for good.

The door to his office opened easily enough. It was empty save for a single glass of scotch on the desk. He had probably been called in for an emergency in the lab.

Chloe opened the adjoining door that led to a small makeshift nursery that Lex had had installed. Her issues with his spiral towards becoming less the man she had hoped him to be involved nothing regarding his fatherhood. He gave all the time he could to his son. Chloe turned on one nightlight and laid the baby down for a nap, then proceeded to the office to wait for Lex.

That was when she noticed the smoke. It was coming from the vents. Immediately, Chloe lunged for the nursery door and pushed, but it would not budge. "Eric!" she cried, pummeling at the door. "Oh God, Eric!" She tried to open the door, but it had shut so tightly she knew that this was premeditated.

Chloe grabbed for her phone and called Lex's number, but the call rolled to voicemail. "Lex! Lex, we're trapped in your office," she gasped.

Her mind was growing numb. Chloe rammed her body against the door until her bones turned to must and the last thing she remembered was sliding down the door.

_iAnd they say that a hero can save us.  
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.  
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.  
Watch as we all fly away./i  
_

She awoke to find him standing beside her hospital bed, his eyes bloodshot, his clothes rumpled as if he had not slept for days and paced for hours. "Where's Eric?" she rasped through her thick throat.

When he looked at her, she felt her insides quiver with something close to fear. "I will stop at nothing until I expose Superman to the world."

"He's a hero, Lex."

"A hero would have saved my little boy," he spat.

The father was angry the exact moment a mother's world ended.

_iSomeone told me that love would all save us.  
But how can that be?  
Look what love gave us.  
A world full of killing, and blood-spilling, that  
world never came./i  
_

In her mind she accepted one truth. She would never live again.

Yet every day, she existed. One day turned to week, then a month. Every day, she told herself, he had lost the same essential in his life that she did. Sometimes she almost lived an entire hour without remembering that she was now half a person.

On Eric's birthday they sat down for a quiet dinner and toasted to the precious life that ended too soon. She spoke of Eric's brightness, of his playfulness, of a smile that would forever be stamped in her brain. "It's your turn, Lex," she prompted.

And his offer was, "He let him die because he was my son."

And she stood up quietly, placed her utensils side by side on the plate, then tossed her napkin on the table. "I can't live with you like this."

"You will not leave me."

She turned liquid eyes at the man she no longer knew. "I'm not going to go on like this, Lex," she said.

_iNow that the world isn't ending, it's love that I'm sending to you.  
It isn't the love of a hero, that's why I fear it won't do./i_

Before her eyes, the heavy cloak of fury and revenge seemed to fall off his shoulders. Her proud Lex Luthor stumbled towards her and knelt, then wrapped his arms around her thighs. The moment tears soaked through her clothes and touched her skin, she buried her fingers in his shoulders and sank to her knees.

"Swear you'll not leave me."

She cradled his head in her chest. "Lex, you're hurting me," she whispered as he squeezed her hip.

"Swear."

_iAnd they say that a hero can save us.  
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.  
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.  
Watch as we all fly away./i_

The next day, Chloe Sullivan ran out of the building to meet Lana. The brunette handed her keys. "I paid for it in cash, just like you asked."

Chloe took the keys, then embraced her friend. "Thank you."

"Where are you going, Chloe?"

"An editor friend of mine got me a job to cover a story in Eastern Europe. He'll never find me there. Lana, promise me no one will know."

"I promise," Lana swore.

"Look in on Lex? Especially the first few days…" Chloe got in and drove away.

_iAnd they're watching us (Watching us)  
They're watching us (watching us) as we all fly away./i_

tbc


	3. All These Things That I Have Done

Part 3 All These Things That I Have Done

_iWhen there's nowhere else to run  
Is there room for one more son/i_

Hidden in the dark lies a past that most would want forgotten. Not Lex Luthor. He lived and breathed the past as if he weren't the man of the future that all of Metropolis touted him to be.

He stood behind the podium in front of two thousand seven hundred eighty four employees of LexCorp Metropolis. "All my life I've devoted to building this company from the ground up," he spoke into the microphone. Lex made certain to look at distinct points in the crowd to make his audience believe that he was making eye contact with each of them. "You have all been witness to my triumphs. When we released Serum 1840 and our production skyrocketed by 68 within one quarter, you were all with me." There was the expected applause. "When we started the factory in Ohio, many of you transferred to better positions there." Again, that applause. To all concerned, Lex Luthor basked.

_iOne more son  
If you can hold on  
If you can hold on, hold on/i_

"You were witness even to my great tragedies, and suffered along with me." Hushed murmurs weaved through the crowd. "You've lost family—some in the Smallville plant explosion, some in the malicious arson right here in Metropolis." Lex paused for effect, and allowed the employees to digest his words. "So have I."

He leaned forward, his palms down on the podium. "Many expected to see me crumble," he continued. "Many wondered when I would give the control over to another of my executives." He turned to the four suited men sitting behind him. "They are a fine group of men, to be certain. However I would be remiss in my duties to you, LexCorp employees, if I retreated within myself."

He stepped back from the podium with the microphone in hand, then looked up to the veiled signage above him.

_iI wanna stand up, I wanna let go  
You know, you know - no you don't, you don't/i_

"I present to you the symbol of my undying devotion to this company, and the representation of our mission and vision—the proof that we will rise from the ashes and never ever die, the testament that we are not merely a business but a humanitarian institution." Lex pulled on the rope and revealed the large lit sign. "Phoenix Charities," he hailed at the resounding cheers.

_iI wanna shine on in the hearts of men  
I want a meaning from the back of my broken hand/i_

Lex smiled and waved at the flashing bulbs of the cameras trained on him and the executives.

He needed this. This adulation was exactly what he was looking for. After all, he had not had the best day. Receiving the news of that woman's arrival simply revived everything that he had believed was laid to rest.

Lois Lane was back, and she had taken everything that was meant for Chloe.

There were many things he portrayed to have forgotten.

She would have found it ironic. She had fought so hard against the man he was turning into she must have never expected that it would be her actions that would seal it all.

_iAnother head aches, another heart breaks  
I am so much older than I can take/i_

Lex Luthor smirked at the cameras one last time before jogging down the stairs. On the way back to the building, Lex spied Pete Ross glaring at him from the sidelines where he stood together with the mayor of Metropolis. Lex gave him a curt nod. Pete responded with a blank stare.

He couldn't blame him.

i_He grabbed the chair and threw it towards the dresser, shattering the mirror she used to when she combed her hair every night. Lex growled at the sight of the few remaining clothes she had left behind. He prowled over to them and tossed them into a pile at the center of the room. He lit an expensive lighter and set fire to it._

_Lex turned to the picture frames hanging from the wall, of himself and Chloe laughing as if there was no tomorrow. It offended him, because she appeared so in love when the truth was that she could abandon him at any moment she pleased._

_And that she did. _

_With a wide gesture he unhooked the frame and threw the frame against the wall._

_The frame dropped behind the rocking chair./i_

Imported from Italy, the chair was a gift he had bought her when they found out she was pregnant.

_i"Ouch, ouch, ouch!" she gasped._

"_Hungry, isn't he?" he murmured with a smile._

_Chloe looked up at him. "Reminds me of my appetite when I was a kid." She then turned to look down at the suckling mouth wrapped around her nipple. "Look at him go."_

"_I'm looking," he assured her. Lex settled beside her on the rocking chair. "Gorgeous."/i_

He collapsed into the chair and rocked, trembling for hours until he was as close to still as he needed. That was the moment he stopped thrashing their home and turned his pent up rage towards the real culprit. His man had informed him about who handed Chloe the keys.

_iAnd my affection, well it comes and goes  
I need direction to perfection, no no no no/i  
_

"Where is she Lana?" he had demanded.

Lana blinked at his words. "What are you talking about?"

_iHelp me out  
Yeah, you know you got to help me out  
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner  
You know you got to help me out, yeah/i  
_

"Tell me where she is or I swear—"

"Do you think threatening me will bring Chloe back, Lex?"

Lex nodded at her words. Pete Ross' fiancé had sealed her fate.

_iAnd when there's nowhere else to run  
Is there room for one more son  
These changes ain't changing me  
The cold-hearted boy I used to be/i_

Day turned to night, and he waited in his house. Lex Luthor sat across the room from the shattered mirror and the pile of charred clothing. The television flickered from high up on the wall. His lips curved when he heard the sirens in the news program. A pale faced anchor spoke on the screen, frantic as she related her breaking news of the mayor's right hand man's house up in flames, his fiancé believed to have been trapped inside.

"We now have confirmation," the brunette continued, excitement creeping into the solemn façade she was putting on. It had to be exciting. She was too used to reporting about biggest cookies and longest hotdogs. "Pete Ross has identified the remains salvaged from the home as Lana Lang."

_iYeah, you know you got to help me out  
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner  
You know you got to help me out, yeah/i_

Lex shrugged off the memory. Sooner or later he would be able to walk away from the past. Chloe couldn't haunt him for too long. All he had to do was tie up all the loose ends.

_iYou're gonna bring yourself down  
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down  
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down/i  
_

Lex entered the elevator and pressed the button for his floor. At the ding, he walked into his plush offices.

iI got soul, but I'm not a soldier /i

He had glass walls to give him an unobstructed view of Metropolis. Now the pest ruined what he paid for. He stopped at the sight. Superman hovered outside, staring at him, watching him.

"When will you cease this obsession?" Lex demanded in a low voice, certain Superman could hear anyway.

"When will you stop yours?" the superhero mouthed.

iOver and out, last call for sin  
While everyone's lost, the battle is won  
With all these things that I've done/i

Lex turned away from Superman, certain that as always, he would leave. Crime never stopped. Sooner or later Superman would hear a muffled cry and glide down to save the world.

He never stopped. Superman was Metropolis' savior. He would fly off again and save every unimportant soul he could.

_iAll these things that I've done  
If you can hold on  
If you can hold on/i_

"Get me Lois Lane's new address here in the city," he commanded. He placed the phone back in the cradle.

_iAll these things that I've done  
If you can hold on  
If you can hold on/i_

She came in to her apartment exhausted from her first day in the office. She tossed her bag onto the chair and stumbled towards the small bathroom. She sighed at the sight. There were rings under her eyes. She pulled back the dark hair and turned her face sideways, then squinted. The faint lines were fading now. Soon they would be gone. Soon there would be no more trace, no more evidence.

When all the signs are gone, then she would face him.

She jerked in surprise when the doorbell chimed. "Who the—"

"Lois!" called out the familiar voice. Despite all he'd done and the hatred in his heart, his voice still melted her insides. "Open the door, Lois!" he demanded.

tbc


	4. Wherever I'm Going

Part 4 Wherever I'm Going

Lex cursed under his breath. She had been here in this room. His men were never wrong about surveillance. This was Lois' apartment. He could see her all around him, hanging in picture frames on the walls. Vanity was most definitely Lois' greatest sin. All around him she smiled down as if there was no one else more important in the world.

He strode across the pitifully small living room and made his way towards a closed door. He was certain it was empty. She could always call on that caped hero and he would come flying in within seconds to rescue her, even if it was from the man that Lois had sinned against. It curdled his guts to know that Superman could be this devoted still the woman who killed his best friend.

The bedroom door swung open and Lex stopped still in his tracks. It was a preview into the bitch's soul, really, to see her guilt displayed so prominently in her most private room. Lex walked slowly towards the dresser, called by the image like a small pin to a magnet.

_You were perfection, my only obsession  
And good to me, good to me_

Chloe looked at him from the photograph with such sad eyes. He recognized the setting. It was at a party that he hosted for LexCorp. He stood beside her on the photograph with the smirk she often told him was overtly self-assured. He corrected her diction, and informed her that he was merely confident when she thought it was arrogance. Still he was drawn to her expression.

_My only addiction, you were such a vision  
Of grace and love, grace and love_

They had been happy then. He knew it with such certainty that he was thrown by the way her eyes haunted him in this picture. Chloe had been happy then. They were building a family. He had no time to analyze the look. Why should he question a truth he knew just because Lois Lane had a photograph that seemed to paint their life together in a way he did not recognize?

_So I fell into your life  
No I won't forget you_

With a disgusted snort, Lex placed the picture frame facedown on the dresser. He would not allow Lois to manipulate him even without being present. She had no right to make him question his life with Chloe with a misplaced, carefully selected photograph. He opened the first drawer and rummaged through the brushes and products that littered the inside.

_I don't know what I'm running from  
I don't know what I'm running to  
But wherever I'm going  
I go there with you_

"Useless," he muttered.

There had to be a clue somewhere that could tell him of any refuge she was going to run to. Lex took the entire drawer out and dumped the contents onto the bed. He sifted through all of the trinkets and found a small wooden box.

"Like a little coffin," he whispered.

"Like the one you didn't get to see her in, right?"

The words chilled him much more than the audacity of the person who could say the words to him. Lex straightened and glared at Clark Kent.

"Are you paying Lois Lane house visits now?" Lex asked coldly.

"Maybe I'm also here to demand answers," Clark told him. "But you don't see me rummaging through her personal effects."

"Only because I beat you to it," Lex parried. "Tell me truth, Clark. You were going to do exactly the same thing. You've never had too many reservations about other people's privacy, Clark, but when it came to yours you usually bit Chloe's head off for doing what she did best."

Clark paused and swallowed the lump in his throat before answering, "Glad to see you've started to talk to her in the past tense. Welcome back to reality."

Lex snarled, then returned to his search, prying open the small box.

"Admit it. You're in a rampage because you never got the chance to end it the way you wanted to."

"What the hell are you talking about, Clark?"

"You would have ended it with her," Clark threw, walking over to him. "Lois just beat you to the closure. You wanted to have the option. You wanted to make the decisions, the way you did those last months. You paid Lois to go after her because you couldn't just let her end it on her own terms." Clark took the box from Lex's hands and popped it open easily, then tossed it back to him. "You killed her."

"I was here!" Lex said softly.

"You sent an amateur journalist after Chloe in a war zone!" Clark accused. "You gave orders to Lois Lane, who knew squat about investigative reporting, into a highly conflicted area to talk to your fiancé about your personal problems. You had Lois Lane argue the good intentions of your lies while Chloe was out there dodging hits!" he finished with a yell.

_I don't know what I'm running from  
Don't know what I'm running to  
But wherever I'm going_

"I was doing what I could to save my family life!" Lex yelled back. "Don't you think I would have gone there if I thought she'd only listen?"

"You didn't," Clark continued, the wind taken out of his sail.

"You don't think I've stayed up most nights wondering what if I came instead, wishing I'd been there with her when that bomb exploded, praying I'd gone with her?" he finished in a whisper.

_I go there with you_

Clark watched Lex's every stiff movement and for that short moment, he wondered why it was exactly that they grew apart.

_There's so many questions  
I can't keep on guessing why, guessing why_

The contents of the box spilled into Lex's palm. At the sight of the small pieces of jewelry, Clark watched the reaction on the bald man's face.

Lex's face had always been difficult to read, but his expression then was so stark it was impossible not to know.

_And I'm wondering why I'm suffering  
And I don't know what to do  
I'd give it all, all away  
Just to be with you_

"What is this?" he whispered, looking up into Clark's eyes.

He was not asking, really, Clark knew. The ring was unmistakable, because Clark had glared often enough at it since he had first seen Chloe sporting the ridiculously large diamond. Still, he answered, for the sake of uncovering what he would not get out of Lois, "Chloe's engagement ring."

Lex stiffly sat on the edge of Lois' bed. "She didn't," Lex choked out.

"Maybe she was going to give it back to you," Clark offered.

Lex's hand closed over the ring and closed his eyes. He gripped the ring until the blunt edges of the diamond almost carved a niche in his bones.

_So I fell into your life  
No I won't forget you  
I don't know what I'm running from  
I don't know what I'm running to_

When he opened his eyes, Clark was gone, as silently as he came. Lex registered that he should probably leave. Instead, he reached for the contents of the drawer and dumped them back inside ceremoniously. He placed the small box inside, then walked over to the dresser and slid the dresser in. Slowly, he settled down on the chair in front of the dresser and reached for the picture frame that he had placed down.

Carefully, he moved the bolster back in place and displayed the photograph, staring at it for the longest moment.

His unhappy Chloe.

_Everywhere that I go without you  
Your picture stares from the wall, I feel you  
A grain of sand in my hand falls to earth  
The serenade of my days spent alone_

He hoped to God that Lois pried the ring off of his fiance's lifeless hand. If Chloe had handed the ring back to her cousin with a message of goodbye, then Lex wondered what kind of darkness was even crueler than where he was then, and knew that with that bitter knowledge he would find out firsthand.

_I don't know what I'm running from  
Don't know what I'm running to  
But wherever I'm going  
I go there with you_

Her eyes haunted him, as she looked at the camera, on the day he had believed her content.

Her eyes said so much more, and she could even hurt him from her grave.

_I'm lost without you_

Clark slammed the door shut behind him, so loudly that she jumped up from the bed in surprise.

"Clark?"

"Yes," he gritted out.

"What are you doing here? How did you know I was here?" she asked, playing the part so perfectly.

"You told Superman you were in danger."

"I did," she admitted.

"So danger was Lex Luthor in your apartment demanding answers he deserved to know?"

She turned away. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Sooner or later, you would have to learn that you can't hide the truth, Lois."

She moistened her lips and turned those green eyes at Clark. His heart clenched at the sight. When she looked into her eyes, she was so much Chloe that he hurt inside.

"Look away, Lois," he rasped.

"I won't."

"Look away," he warned again.

"You can't hurt me while I'm looking, Clark."

"Do you think I could ever hurt you?" he whispered.

"Won't you?" she demanded. "You hate me for what happened, don't you?"

"I do," he admitted. "I hate you for your stupidity, for killing someone I loved."

She nodded.

"I'd never raise my hand against you," he vowed. "As much as I'd never stop hating you, I'd never physically assault you, you can be sure of that."

She sucked in her breath. "I'm leaving." She stood up from the bed and stiffly made her way towards the door. "Facing Lex's questions would probably be easier than sitting here taking all this crap from you."

"I won't be too sure."

She placed her hand on the knob and turned. With the door open behind her, she walked over to Clark. He held his breath and she stood there so close, within reach. He met those eyes moist with unshed tears.

_Why'd you have to be here for just one day  
I miss you, I miss you_

Of their own volition, his hands reached up to frame her face. They were Chloe's eyes. No matter what he told himself, there was a starving part of him that convinced him he could lose himself in something he had thought was lost.

He bent down to place his lips on hers, just briefly, so softly. Clark lost himself for that one moment to remember what it was like.

After a few seconds, he pulled away with a look of disgust, his lips still tingling with a hauntingly familiar and tender sensation.

"You killed her," he repeated to himself. "Do you understand what you've done?"

_And I'm looking for answers why you went away  
It shattered my world but together we'll stay_

She shook her head. "You told her you were still in love with her," she whispered. "The day she ran to you, to tell you about her problems, to ask you for advice because her life was falling apart… You were in love with her," she said in an accusing tone. "And you blame it all on me for going after her and on Lex for driving her away."

She then turned away and fled. Clark closed the door behind her.

_I miss you, I miss you._

tbc


	5. Don't Panic

Part 5 Don't Panic

She pushed through the doors of Clark's building and raced out into the street, frantically whipping her head from left to right to check the traffic yet knowing that she probably would not have stopped even if there was a car racing towards her. She had to get away. She had leave her best friend, the only person she knew could keep her from Lex. The betrayal choked her more than it ever had. It came rushing back to her that she had no one left.

_iOh, we're sinking like stones,  
All that we fought for,  
All those places we've gone,  
All of us are done for. /i_

He used to be the one man she could count on. The first night Lex left her alone, the night that she remembered the day her son was supposed to celebrate his first birthday, and Lex had to take a phone call that took him to a corner of the suite speaking in a hushed voice and throwing sideways glances at her, Chloe took her coat and walked out of the room. In the small café on the first floor, she met Clark and cried on his shoulder.

"I don't know what to do anymore," she remembered telling him.

He had tipped her chin up, and met her eyes intently. And then he told her, "You have a choice, Chloe. You only have to be brave enough to take that step away from him."

"He's hurting, Clark."

"And he'll hurt you more to feel better about himself. He doesn't know, Chloe. He doesn't pay attention," Clark had told her, and Chloe had recognized his words for the same truth had been trying to deny. "He's too immersed in his own world now." And then he had told her the one thing she feared, and the one thought that niggled in her head. "You can't save him anymore."

Chloe had placed her faith in Clark. He had contributed to her decision to leave her husband. And he had been harboring his own selfish reasons.

_iWe live in a beautiful world,  
Yeah we do, yeah we do,  
We live in a beautiful world/i_

And what terrified her even more was the memory of that kiss, when her eyes fluttered closed and for a few seconds, the tragedy of her life fell away.

And again she was Chloe Sullivan, sixteen and full of anticipation, hopelessly infatuated with the naïve handsome boy who had a hero complex. And again she was a wallflower drawn to the dance floor by the boy she had been waiting so long for.

_iOh, we're sinking like stones,  
All that we fought for,  
All those places we've gone,  
All of us are done for. /i_

She couldn't believe Clark betrayed her that way, to awaken feelings she'd buried so deep she had fooled herself that they were forgotten. And he had done so in the midst of her crisis.

_iWe live in a beautiful world,  
Yeah we do, yeah we do,  
We live in a beautiful world. /i_

She ran across the street and drew her cloak around her. She had nowhere to go. She could try her apartment again, but she was unwilling to face Lex, either as Lois being blamed for her cousin's death or as herself, facing the man who killed every fiber of her being during a time she had believed herself to love him with her whole being.

"Lois."

She froze in her tracks. Right in front of her, darkened by the shadows of the building, stood the man she would rather burn for than confront. In many aspects, she did burn in her effort to avoid him. Chloe was gone, to him she was no more than ashes blown by the wind.

He stepped out of the shadows and into the light of the streetlamp.

And he was resplendent still, the way he had been on the day that he knelt on one knee and promised her a future.

_iOh, all that I know,  
There's nothing here to run from,  
And there, everybody here's got somebody to lean on./i_

His eyes were dead, and they rocked her to the very core.

Lex's eyes, intelligent and vibrant, scheming and cunning, good or evil, they had always been full of life. Lex's beautiful eyes were dull, almost throbbing with welling tears she knew he would never ever shed.

Certainly not in front of Lois Lane.

Lex Luthor had left Lois' apartment building and stepped into the elevator. Down. He was going to be in descent forever. He stepped outside and saw his car. As soon as his driver opened the door, he waved him away.

Lex had no knowledge of how long or how far he walked. And it was then that he saw her, a brunette streaking across the street.

"Lois."

She stopped and regarded him in the darkness, and he could hear the thunderous beating of her heart. He stepped out of the darkness and they regarded each other.

"How long are you going to hide from me?" he rasped.

She closed her eyes and let his voice wash over her. It was the first time she heard him speak to her without the hatred. He seemed too exhausted to burn his energy with hatred.

She relished that.

"I'm not hiding," she managed.

The moment the words left her mouth, she turned around stiffly and began to walk away. Her stiff walk turned into a jog, then a run.

"Lois," he called.

The voice was still soft, too soft to be from someone evil. She took bigger steps. It was then that she caught her shoe in a grill vent on the street and she stumbled, then skidded.

Not a minute passed when a hand closed around her elbow and was pulling her up.

"Get away from me, Lex!"

He stared down at her, his fists clenching, watching her.

She swallowed. She had known for a long time before she left what Lex was capable of.

He grasped her upper arms and dragged her towards the street. His car stopped in front of them and he pushed her in. "I need to know everything that happened."

She regarded him in surprise.

"You have Chloe's eyes." Lex looked away.

She pleaded with him, "We should just move on."

Lex shook his head. "You're not safe in your apartment. You're staying with me."

"You hate me."

His lips curled. "I don't deny that. But Chloe always told me that it's family first. No matter what. I'm responsible for you whether I want to be or not."

"You remember all that?"

"I remember every second with her."

Lois shook her head. "She left you. You don't owe her anything."

Lex leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "After what you've done to her, I'd never expect you to understand Chloe's idea of a family."

_iOh, all that I know,  
There's nothing here to run from,  
And there, everybody here's got somebody to lean on./i_

_tbc_


	6. Crave Me

Part 6 Crave Me

They could both pretend that the words were not hurtful, but they were both too intelligent for that. Lex quickly glanced at Lois the way he would never have bothered had she not meant so much to Chloe.

"I'm sorry," his voice rumbled in his chest.

She smiled tightly, partly because as Lois Lane in Lex's truth, she deserved the slur, and partly because as Chloe Sullivan it went against her grain to put stock on the idea that Lex could exhibit such unpracticed humanity. He had hardly stretched those muscles since long before she left him.

"Lex, I don't really think that it's a good idea to stay under one roof, after everything. You despise me; and I don't trust you."

His lips curled into a smirk. "True. And you no reason to." He turned his attention to the passing streets outside the window and continued, "Late at night when I wake up from nightmares of Chloe burning alive in that attack, I get the urge to hunt you down and press on your windpipe until you're dying for breath." Then he regarded her in the darkness of the car. "Then I force myself to remember that Chloe had a mind of her own, and it would have happened anyway."

She had to know. It was not a good idea to open that can of worms, but she really needed to know. "Don't you sometimes also remember that she was gone from you long before she died in Europe?"

"What the hell do you know?" he whispered, the softness of his voice belying the rage that thrummed through each word.

"I know my cousin, Lex, inside and out. You would never find anyone who tell you straight out what she really thought other than me," she said with such certainty she knew she had to tone it down. "She told me everything she'd felt since the moment we were reunited. Lex, you have nothing to hide from me."

"She told you everything," he said slowly, digesting the words. "Then you really can answer my questions."

"Lex, don't do this to yourself."

He slid towards her on the cool leather seat and looked her in the eye. Chloe's eyes.

_iHave you lost the bitterness  
The bitterness that I can see in your eyes  
Those wicked eyes/i_

It was so clear. There was no denying it. Lex stared into Chloe's eyes and she could see him looking at them mystified, as if she had solidified from the million ashes and sat before him again.

Awkwardly, Lex straightened, putting distance between himself and Lois.

"Tell me how she died."

_iAnd what is it you want from me  
A best friend or a tragedy  
It's hard to get inside your head/i_

"It happened too fast," was her quick, practiced reply. She had been certain that she would be asked that question often. She would rather not remember. While everyone was focused on Chloe Sullivan, they could not realize how she had lost her cousin then.

He pressed on, uncaring of her turmoil. "Lois, my fiancé was a trained journalist. She knew the ins and outs of wartorn Europe. She knew which roads to avoid and had the survival instincts of a dozen men. I need to know."

She looked up at Lex's burning gaze and closed her eyes. As free of emotion as she could manage, she told him, "We were heading north and she… I wanted to stop or turn around because there was a slow moving car heading our way. And then I told her that it was more dangerous to go side by side than to continue along towards our base."

"She wouldn't just follow you if her instincts tell her not to," Lex pointed out.

"She was driving the car," she whispered.

i"Step on the gas, Chloe," Lois commanded.

"Lois, just stay put," the blonde argued. "I know what I'm doing."

The car flashed its lights, yet continued its minimal velocity on the other side of the road. "Chloe, step on it!" Lois yelled.

Instead of slowing down, the car hummed to life and picked up speed. "The faster we pass him by," Chloe reasoned, "the sooner we're out of the woods."

"I can't believe you're running again," Lois grumbled. "That's exactly why we're both stuck her."

"Lois," Chloe argued, "let's not do that here. If you haven't noticed, we're in serious trouble if that car is what I think it is."

Lois rolled her eyes at her cousin. "Of course."

The closer they got to the car, the clearer she saw the driver. Lois squinted and saw the driver's lips moving feverishly in a chant, with the driver's eyes closed. For a moment, she wanted to scream. She looked at Chloe and saw her intently focused on the road ahead of her, pressing on the gas and speeding up.

In the split second that they were side by side, Lois closed her hand around the hand brake and pulled up with all her night, sending both of them forward despite the seatbelts and the car careening towards the car beside them./i

"It was full of explosives," she managed. Belatedly she realized that she had been telling the story through sobs. For the first time, she replayed the events consciously, and not in the uncontrolled environment of her sleep. "A suicide bomber, and it was meant for the base that we had just left."

"You're not telling me what I want to know," he whispered. His hand closed around hers and she closed her eyes tighter at the sensation that she missed so much. He held her hand, and touched her ring. "Did she give you my ring? Did she mention me? What did she tell you, Lois?"

"I can't remember," she sobbed.

His hand tightened around hers. "This was the woman that I had built my world around," he reminded her in a tremulous voice. "And you've admitted that you played the most part in her death. You will remember everything, Lois, because you've taken away my chance to share a life with her. You owe me enough to relive her death and tell me what I want to hear."

"What do you want to hear?" she demanded, meeting his eyes now.

_iIt's like the way you talk to me  
Like we're just a memory  
I need to be with you tonight/i_

Lex Luthor's eyes were naked to her again, the way they had been as he loomed above her as he pumped her full of his child, the night that they conceived Eric.

"That she said my name, even once, before she was gone," came the whispered wish.

_iShe cried out at the pain of scorching flesh, but managed to lift her upper body with her forearms, biting her lower lip at the searing burn._

"_Lois!" Chloe looked around the smoke for her cousin. "Oh God, Lois, where are you?"_

_The car was shooting flames, and Chloe dropped onto her chest on the ground. "Roll on the ground," she screamed. "Get rid of the fire on you!" She had not seen her cousin yet. Chloe felt herself thrumming with adrenaline. "Lois, crawl away from the car. There's gas everywhere." Chloe took her advice and dropped down to kill the flames. _

_The ground beside her blew up fire snaking towards her leg. The moment she saw how her leg was soaked with oil, she grabbed some sand from the side of the road and rubbed her leg until it was dry and abraded. Soon it will pus and moisten with her own body fluid. Now she only needed to survive._

_Chloe turned to the site of the crash and screamed, "Lois!"_

_An explosion burst beside her, throwing her off her feet a several feet away. She fell into a crumpled heap right on the sand, feeling her entire body being ravaged by white hot fire. The pain was so much that all she could see was blind white calling to her. Before she lost consciousness, she closed her fist around her ring, then wept./i_

It was such a conscious action on her part then, because she had thought she was going to die. Chloe cried for the broken that would not be fixed, and she cried for the realization that everything she had placed faith on, of living and dying with the man she loved, would not come to pass.

It was something that Lex did not need to know.

_iYou tried so hard to play the fool  
Look at you now your all alone again  
Do you find it hard to breathe/i_

"Her fist was closed around your ring when she died," were the words that left her mouth, despite her decision. In the back of her mind she acknowledged that if Lex were to take away anything from this, he would know that he had at least been loved.

The statement was so simple and matter of fact that she did not expect the reaction from the man that had indirectly killed hundreds.

Lex Luthor bent down and covered his face with his hands, then was racked by tight shudders.

She moved close and swallowed at the sight. Reluctantly, she wrapped an arm across his back and slid her other arm across his chest. Then she drew him against her.

"Lex…" she said softly.

He did not stop, but trembled so violently in her arms she feared that he would just physically fall apart in her embrace.

"Lex," she hushed. "It will be alright."

There was no response. Caught in his own world, one that he seemed to have been hiding from for so long, Lex was lost. The tremors, the tight, almost inaudible sobs, the way he hid his face to the world.

He was protected at all costs.

_iAnd now you've gone and left me here  
Hope that I would disappear  
And forget that we ever met at all/i_

The car stopped in front of Lex's building, and she looked down at him still curled against her.

"Lex, we're here," she whispered.

He extricated himself from her embrace but did not straighten. Instead, he rested his elbows on his thighs and placed his fingers on his temples, still hiding his eyes from her with his hands.

iCrave me again  
Won't you stay with me till the bitter end  
Crave me  
Stay with me/i

"Please go on upstairs. I've made arrangements for the guest bedroom to be prepared," he said in his hoarse voice.

"I'm really not comfortable with—"

"Please," he repeated.

One night. She'd give him that. She was unwilling to leave him alone tonight after this. "Fine," she surrendered. She got off the vehicle and looked back at him. "Come on."

"I'll be there soon," he told her. Then he picked up the phone beside his door. "Jared," he said, and for once Chloe realized that he still had in his employ the man who had taken Lex around the city eight times before Lex realized that she had truly left him. "Let's drive around."

She slammed the door shut and looked up at the tall building that was now Lex's home. She missed the house. It was their life, and now he was back living at the top of the world, so far from their dream world.

Chloe turned and watched the car drive away.

Lex was not the man she had fallen in love with. She needed to remember that. Yet there were times, just like tonight, that she wasn't sure anymore.

_iCome back to me  
Crave me  
And it's you and me/i_

Chloe walked into the building and rode the elevator to the penthouse. The doors opened to reveal the posh and luxurious suite that housed all that Lex was as the CEO of a dollar corporation, with nothing to represent who he had been when he was with her.

This was Lex Luthor today.

She had accepted it once, painfully, and that was the reason that she left. Chloe walked over to the glass windows and stared out at the black sky. A figure in blue and red zipped through the sky. She placed her palm against the glass.

_iAnd it's you and me  
You're my only desire/i_

Heaving a sigh, Chloe proceeded to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. From memory, she took items and laid them on the table, then proceeded to lay ingredients on top of each other, making a thick and healthy sandwich.

It would not take long for Lex to come home. She was going to retreat to the guest bedroom and stay the night, because it would be too emotional to argue with Lex tonight. Tomorrow, she would leave, and try as much as she could to live her life and stay clear of him.

It was the only way he would recover; and the only way she could pick up the pieces.

Chloe proceeded to the first door she saw and opened the door, to reveal a masculine room of black silk sheets and a pair of boxers thrown on the arm of a chair. It left little doubt that this was not her room. She stepped inside and pulled the ring off her finger. She placed it on the side table to leave no doubt of what it meant. She was letting this life go, and giving Lex the closure of holding the ring in his hand.

She picked up the picture frame, and saw herself and Eric waving to the camera. Her fingertips traced the smile on her son's face.

_iCrave me again  
Won't you stay with me till the bitter end  
Won't you crave me again  
He is half the man I am/i_

He came back from the drive, emotionally and physically drained. Lex flipped on the lights to his cold apartment. He was sure that she would be asleep, probably heading straight to bed the moment she walked in. On his way to get some water, he saw the covered plate on the table. When he lifted the cover, there sat a sandwich.

The door of his bedroom swung open, and he looked up to see Lois, teary-eyed as she held the photograph that had been the last thing he looked at at night, before he closed his eyes against his lonely world.

He did not greet her, but nodded as he lifted the sandwich to his mouth and took a bite.

The exact combination of ingredients that he bit into was the same as the one he had made with Chloe one weekend once upon a time.

_iCrave me again/i_

tbc


	7. Creep

Part 7 Creep

She offered a trembling smile. His steady gaze that had traces of doubt unsettled her. "Glad to see you're back," she managed as emotionlessly as she could, which was a great effort given the tight constraint of her throat. "I hope I got the sandwich correct. Chloe said it was your favorite."

His gaze wavered for a moment, as if the answer had taken him off guard. "It's good. You got it down perfectly."

She waited a bit before nodding and turning away. His eyes followed her as she vanished into the corridor. The moment that she was gone from her sight, Lex tossed the half-eaten sandwich into the trash. He shook his head free of inane fantasies. It was time to burn out the toxins of the day, the feelings of deprivation that consumed him, and set everything to rest.

He had done the last thing he needed to close the book.

If she could see all this, she would ask for nothing more, he thought as he entered his workout room and started unbuttoning the dress shirt he wore. Lex shrugged off the expensive clothing and dropped the shirt on the floor. He loosened his belt and took it off. Standing in the middle of the makeshift gym in office slacks and Italian leather shoes, Lex looked out of place in the space that had only a treadmill, a bike and a boxing sandbag.

Slowly he wrapped his fists in bandage. His movements were smooth, slow. Then suddenly his fist flew and slammed against the bag with a grunt. Punch after punch he threw his weight against the boxing bag, his rhythm punctuated only by grunts of effort, not pausing even for two second intervals, he hit until he could not hit more.

As sweat poured from his body, drenching his naked torso, his vision darkened at the edges until he could see close to nothing. Still he continued the beating that was more violent towards his body than towards the target. His breath came in loud gasps and his chest tightened until he fell onto his knees, his head hanging from his shoulders.

It took several moments to regain his breath, after which he raised his face towards the ceiling, still panting.

"This has got to be enough for you," he gasped. Lex could hear his heart's violent beating in his ear. "Because seeing her every day is almost more than I can take." It's her eyes—her fucking stolen eyes.

_iWhen you were here before,  
Couldn't look you in the eyes  
You're just like an angel,  
your skin makes me cry/i_

When Clark remembered her, it was easy to glare at the woman who had effectively taken her place in their lives. Lois arrived in the Daily Planet office and took a seat in Chloe's old chair again, turned on the old computer and met his eyes.

"You do know that we would eventually have to work together, don't you?"

"We're partners," Lois admitted grudgingly. "Perry hates me."

Clark gave her a smile of discomfort. He took her words as a cue that maybe, they could be friends, and everything would be fine. "I'm sorry about what I said to you your first day back." He shrugged. "I think I have unattended angst."

"You lost your friend," she gave him as his own excuse. "I'm sure you could have been worse, given the circumstances."

"It's not just that. We weren't," he hesitated," we weren't just that."

She looked up at him in shock, at the words he admitted, of a truth she had tried to bleed out of her body when she had the chance. Her greatest mistake looked her in the eye. " I don't want to hear about it," she choked.

"I have to say it. It's the only way I can explain why I was the way I was."

"Clark, I understand. Believe me, you don't have to confess anything to me," she pleaded.

He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head, but the images were straight from a dream and they kept coming back over and over again. "Sometimes I wonder if it will help me if I tell Lex."

"No," she said sharply. "Haven't you done enough?"

"I really thought when she came back that maybe, maybe we'd be together."

iYou float like a feather  
In a beautiful world  
I wish I was special  
You're so fucking special/i

i"Thank you," Clark gasped, with his face buried in her hair.

Chloe closed her eyes and swallowed deeply as she achieved her own quiet release. Her heart thundered in her chest. Her hands were splayed across Clark's sweaty bare back. Gently, she moved her arms so that her palms would rest on his chest. "Get off, Clark," she whispered. "I need to go."

"You can sleep, Chlo," he assured her. "I won't go anywhere."

"Clark, get up," she repeated more firmly. "I'm going to wash up."

Reluctantly he pulled himself up, leaving her body and wincing at the way she quickly curled herself into a ball. Chloe grasped for the shirt he had discarded on the floor and pulled it over her shoulders, hastily buttoning the front so that it was uneven at the hem.

Chloe padded across the motel room towards the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She turned on the shower and turned it to hot. While she was waiting for the water to heat up, Chloe fumbled with the buttons of Clark's shirt and dropped it on the tiled floor. Slowly the water seeped into the threat and darkened the cloth.

"Chloe," she heard Clark call from the other side of the door. "Chlo—"

"Not now, Clark," she called back.

"I know you, Chloe. You don't have to feel bad about this."

She didn't answer. She turned her face up towards the spray of water, feeling the burning drops of water on her skin. Her face crumpled and then she just knew she was crying, even though the water quickly washed her tears away.

"You know how I feel," Clark continued. "Don't be afraid."

And it was the words that resulted in the heaving sobs that racked her shoulders. Suddenly she was no longer willing to have the water fall directly on her face. Suddenly she didn't want to be exposed so much. She turned around and wrapped her arms around her body, covering her chest with trembling wet limbs, her soaked hair falling to both sides of her face, hiding herself from the rest of the world.

Clark's calls stopped and Chloe did not even notice. All she knew was she was crying until her eyes were so dry they hurt. She turned off the shower and grabbed the motel towel, wrapping it tightly around herself.

Clark looked up from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed the moment she opened the door. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Clark, I'm going to leave."

His eyes were hurt. "Are you going back to Lex? You're not happy with him, Chloe."

"I don't know what to do anymore, Clark, but I can't be with him. Not after all he's done."

"Then you can stay with me."

She shook her head. "He's not going to just let me go."

He stood up, now only wearing his boxers. "It's not like I can't protect you from Lex Luthor, Chlo."

And didn't she know it. Just a couple of hours before, vulnerable and on edge after leaving Lex, Clark had found her waiting for a bus, always to her rescue. It was when he took her hand that she asked wonderingly, to herself, why she couldn't have fallen in love with a hero.

"I will protect you, Chloe," he repeated, his voice firm enough that Chloe almost believed him.

"You could," she admitted, "take Lex up so high into the air and then drop him into the Atlantic ocean. But I'm not going to let you."

But I'm a creep,  
I'm a weirdo

She hurriedly put her clothes back on and picked up her bag. "I shouldn't have come back here with you. Clark, my family is falling apart!"

He took her by her arms and his eyes blazed down at her. "And it's not my fault."

"I never said it was," she whispered. She had been shattered by his conversation with Lex, on Eric's birthday memorial dinner earlier, when he knelt before her and asked her to swear to stay.

"Stay," Clark said softly, without the tremulous fear that came with Lex's voice. "Stay and I swear I'll make you the happiest woman in the world. You say that you wish you'd fallen in love with a hero. Lex will never be one, Chloe. But I am. And I'm here."

What the hell am I doin' here?  
I don't belong here

Gently but firmly, she pulled away from Clark and walked over to the door. Before leaving, she turned to face him and set expectations.

"Tomorrow morning I'm asking Perry to assign me out of the country. I need to leave, Clark. I need to leave Lex and I need to be away from you."

I don't care if it hurts,  
I wanna have control  
I want a perfect body  
I want a perfect soul/i

"She wouldn't have come back to you," she concluded with a certainty that came with knowing herself more since her harrowing ordeal.

"You can't be sure of that."

He shook her head. "I don't believe you. We spent her last night here together. She was coming back to me until you came."

She regarded Clark with silent eyes, reading every curve and hollow on his face. He believed every word. Nothing that she could say now would fix it.

iI want you to notice  
when I'm not around  
You're so Fuckin' special  
I wish I was special/i

When Lex Luthor came back from the meeting and settled into his office chair, he leaned back and steepled his hands on the bridge of his nose. At that moment he saw the small greenish envelope peeking from underneath the stack of magazines on his coffee table. He walked over towards it and picked it up.

Inside the envelope was a piece of Daily Planet stationery. He unfolded the piece of paper. The handwriting made him pause, and the words sent a cold wave slamming on him.

iBut I'm a creep  
I'm a weirdo/i

"When I swore you would be in heart forever, I had not been lying. Unlike many people in your life, I would not have deceived you willingly.

I leave with a heart heavy with anguish that our world has come crashing down around us, and also with unwavering affection. I cannot not love you, Lex, despite all of it.

I've betrayed you, but I am brave enough to face you in time. Now I'm running away from myself, towards myself… I don't know.

When I return, we will have an answer."

Chloe silently watched the lack of emotion or reaction on Lex as he read the letter that she had slipped under the stack of reading material only minutes before.

iWhat the hell am I doin' here?  
I don't belong here, ohhhh, ohhhh/i

Lex folded the piece of paper and slid it into the envelope. He went over to his desk and settled back into his chair again, then tossed the envelope onto his desk, staring at it as if expecting it to burst into flames.

He raised his gaze towards the doorway and frowned at the sight of brown hair. He pushed his chair back and strode towards the door, then turned his head towards where she had run to.

He proceeded to the elevators and saw the waiting area vacant. Lex raised his phone and dialed his security department.

"I want the surveillance video of the corridor in front of my office."

iShe's running out again  
She's running out  
She runs runs runs runs.../i

Lex watched the video emailed by his security. Afterwards, he went to the Daily Planet, determined to find out what she was hiding. He was informed that she had stepped out for lunch, which he expected. Lois Lane would have had to make some excuse to leave the message in his office. She was wearing a coat when she came in, but she was unmistakable. Lex watched the sharp images that captured Lois Lane entering his office.

The moment he saw her, Lex stood up. She walked over closer to him.

"You forget that I'm paranoid, and that I have my building completely equipped with video surveillance."

She looked up at him. "Lex…"

"How could you keep the letter from me?" Lex asked emotionlessly. "Did she leave it with you before she left?"

She breathed in some relief. "I can't tell you that."

"What betrayal?" he asked.

And it was the easiest way she could unburden, but it would not have been fair to him, when he had no one to confront. "I don't know."

He grabbed her arms. "Who was it, Lois?" he demanded, his eyes throbbing with tears of rage, of anger, of despair. She wasn't certain.

She winced at the pain. "I'm so sorry, Lex," she cried.

iWhatever makes you happy  
Whatever you want  
You're so fucking special  
I wish I was special/i

"Who?"

And for that split second her guilt overcame her good sense. She hurt him and he wanted to know this.

"Clark," she blurted.

And the face she saw was that of a shattered soul.

"But she loved you," she told him. "She loved you."

iBut I'm a creep,  
I'm a weirdo  
What the hell am I doin' here?  
I don't belong here/i

He turned away from her. His stiff movements carried him towards the doors to the elevator. She closed her eyes. If there was one thing that had not changed out of the old her, it was that she could never bear to see him walking away.

iI don't belong here.../i

tbc


	8. Iris

See Into Me

Chapter 7 – Iris

There was no sound aside from her breathing and the steady drone of the air conditioner. Chloe could not help but shiver at the cold. The temperature had obviously been left unattended for some time, and so had dropped to an almost uninhabitable low. There was no other light than that which came from the building signs outside. Chloe groped on the wall for the switch and flooded the room suddenly with blinding white before adjusting the brightness.

"Lex," she called out tentatively.

Chloe walked over to the kitchen to look for him. Finding no one, she returned to the living room and sat on the couch. She idly picked uo the remote for the temperature and raised the temperature.

A moment later there was a shatter from inside Lex's library. She ran there to find Lex leaning against the wall.

_iAnd I'd give up forever to touch you  
Cause I know that you feel me somehow /i_

His eyes were bleary when he looked over to where she was as if expecting that he would find her when he turned. His gaze chilled her to the bone. He looked at her as if he could see right through her lies. Instead of running out the same way she did before, Chloe realized that Lex, for the first time in their lives, really desperately needed her to stay. She walked over towards him and took his arm. He leaned on her, and she could smell the alcohol in his breath.

"Lex, what are you doing?"

He looked down into her eyes as they glittered with her tears. "I despise everything about you," he answered, and she could almost feel the hatred tangible in his voice. "I wish you were dead," he gritted out.

She closed her eyes, and a lone tear seeped out.

"Both of you," he continued. At his words, Chloe looked up at him in surprise. "I thought I could do this," he murmured. "I really did."

"Come on, Lex. You've got to sleep this off." She tried to pull on his arm, but he would not budge. "Let me help you."

"But this isn't going to. I've got to stop fooling myself. If I kept you safe, I told myself I'd be making it up to Chloe," he said as if he did not hear her.

"I don't want to hear this, Lex," she choked out. And it was true. There was no need for her to know how her admission had knocked her from a pedestal to a muck of hatred in such a short time.

"But I can't stand you," he told her. "I can't stand breathing in the same air you breathe. And I can't stand knowing that you're around because of some misguided loyalty to a woman who obviously held no such devotion."

She forced herself not to hear his words. Lex finally stumbled along with her on their way to his bedroom. Chloe opened the large door and helped him onto the bed. As Lex plopped down onto his back, Chloe gathered a silk blanket and spread it over him.

"Sleep first," she whispered.

"When I wake up," he returned, "I want you gone."

_iYou're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be  
And I don't want to go home right now/i_

She had not ventured out so late at night for so long. It had something to do with a deep seated fear she had, that in the darkness one of the objects around her would just explode and send her back into the claws of death she had once escaped.

Tonight she had been sent back outside by the one man that confounded her, that threw her off balance just when she had started to think that she had finally found her stability. She wanted to be away from him but she still wanted to see him, to touch him and know that he would find a way back to his feet somehow. Lex Luthor made her want to know he would be able to move on yet her heart rebelled at the idea of his hands on another woman.

_iAnd all I can taste is this moment  
And all I can breathe is your life  
Cause sooner or later it's over  
I just don't want to miss you tonight _

"_One day, I'll marry you," he had said once, as he stared at the ceiling, lying abed with her._

_She turned her head towards him, eyes puzzled. No one ever spoke of commitment, least of all marriage. And he voiced it as if it was a realization this time. "Will you?" she said teasingly, with a small smile on her face._

_Lex turned his head to face her, then stole a swift kiss. "I'm pretty sure I will," he replied.  
_

"_Isn't that weird," Chloe murmured, the mirth gone from her eyes._

"_Very," he admitted._

"_Then again you get married at the drop of a hat," she commented offhandedly._

_Lex picked up her hand and kissed her fingers. "I was in love with them all," he told her. "I was never obsessed with anyone like I am with you."_

_The words sent a shiver down her back. Chloe edged closer to him in bed, and sighed when he wrapped her in his embrace. She laid her hand on his chest and kissed the bare skin above his heart. "I love you," she told him, and it was a night of realizations and clichés._

_Lex would never be one to use such common words. "I can't live knowing that you're not mine," he answered softly._

_And I don't want the world to see me  
Cause I don't think that they'd understand_

_Chloe smiled at the thought as she closed her eyes, spent with physical exhaustion and the emotional demand of the night. She must have been asleep for mere minutes when she was jarred from her sleep by Lex's voice. Chloe opened her eyes to find him looming above her, positioned between her legs, pressing short fervent kisses on her chin. She felt him pressed up against her, hard._

"_Lex?" she whispered. Her eyes widened when he thrust inside. Caught unprepared, Chloe swallowed deeply as she waited for her body to adjust to the intrusion. Thankfully she was still wet from their earlier intercourse, and she held onto his back as he pumped into her erratically. She arched her back as he painfully bit into her neck, giving him more room for exploration._

"_Tell me," he demanded. "Chloe, say it."_

_And she wanted to say it, she thought desperately as Lex's movements grew faster and faster, as her thighs started to burn at the ceaseless motion. _

"_I—love—you," she managed, with each jarring thrust._

_His eyes squeezed shut. "No." Deeper, he thrusted. Sweat rolled down his forehead, down the side of his face, then dripped onto the hollow between her breasts._

"_Lex," she pleaded, so close, her body hurting for release._

"_Tell me," he demanded, stopping halfway into her channel._

_Chloe arched up, then turned her head away._

"_Tell me you're mine."_

_When everything's made to be broken  
I just want you to know who I am_ /i

It was the moment that she turned the corner that Chloe realized she was being followed. Stupid of her not to notice sooner. Living with Lex, she had been trained to recognize the signs.

She stopped in front of a bridal boutique, and to anyone watching she was a lone woman dreamily admiring the silk taffeta flowing gown in the window display. Instead, Chloe focused on the reflection on the window. There was a car several yards behind her, with its headlights off.

The driver, a small Caucasian man, met her eyes in the reflection. Chloe's heart stopped. From the passenger side, another man stepped out of the car. She vaguely recognized him from one of the Lipaztan government aides. She tried to appear calm as she walked towards the opposite direction.

_iAnd you can't fight the tears that ain't coming  
Or the moment of truth in your lies/i_

As Chloe strode faster, so did the man. His hand was inside his coat pocket, and her heart hammered in her chest. Something protruded underneath the cloth, and experience told her that it was a gun. At the back of her mind, she asked herself why not just to let him kill her. Everyone knew she was dead anyway. There would be no added grief if she did die.

Still, the fighter inside her woke from her deep slumber. She was not going to go gently into the night, and allow genocidal maniacs to snuff out the last chance for the world to know the human corruption that happened there.

Gunshot tore through the night. Despite her bravado, Chloe screamed and jerked away from the building wall, where the bullet embedded.

That was when she burst into a run. She glanced behind her and saw that the man had started running after her as well, with the gun drawn out and pointed directly at her. Running straight down the street would not help and would get her killed faster. She did not even look both sides of the street before crossing in a run.

_iWhen everything seems like the movies  
Yeah you bleed just to know your alive /i_

Out of nowhere a shiny black car sped towards the gunman. The man trained the gun towards the windshield and shot. The bumper threw the gunman against the wall.

"Lex!" she screamed.

Chloe ran towards the car and pulled the door open to find Lex gritting his teeth against the burning pain of the gunshot that went through his shoulder. Then she did not care anymore if Lex would wonder why Lois Lane was suddenly frantic about his health.

She grabbed the sleeve of his shirt and tore it open, then stared at the freely bleeding wound. The sight caused tears to flood through her eyes. "Oh God, Lex." She bent towards him and took his uninjured arm, then placed it over her shoulders. He still smelled like scotch and sweat, and Chloe adored it.

"No hospital," he breathed. "The sooner I die the sooner I can strangle her."

"You're insane," she said in relief. The bullet had gone straight through and he was going to live.

She escorted him out of the car, then helped him to the backseat. Before she slammed the door, Lex opened his eyes and glared at her. "I knew you were going to piss someone off again," he drawled drunkenly. "What did you do now?"

_iAnd I don't want the world to see me  
Cause I don't think that they'd understand /i_

Back in the apartment, Chloe helped Lex onto his bed, then proceeded to the bathroom to gather supplies to clean the wound.

The tears would not stop as she treated the through and through. Chloe sniffed through the tears and patched him up.

"Stop that," he told her, irritated. "You can stay."

Chloe shook her head. Leave it to him to still stubbornly be hung up on his own concerns when she was making sure his wound did not fester. "We need to go to the hospital, Lex. This might get infected," she argued.

When she looked back up his face, he was already asleep. She went over to a chair overlooking the bed and slept.

_  
iWhen everything's made to be broken  
I just want you to know who I am /i_

In the middle of the night, Chloe woke and immediately looked towards Lex. She was surprised to find him awake and staring at her. She stood and walked closer to him and recognized glassy fevered eyes.

"Chloe, come back to bed," he said clearly.

She shook her head, then sat on the edge. She took the small cloth that she had prepared and soaked it in the cold water, then squeezed out the excess. She laid the cloth on his forehead.

When the cloth turned warm, she lifted it from his forehead then soaked it again, repeating the whole procedure several times, then gently touching the cool cloth to his throat, earning her a pleased murmur from Lex.

Chloe swallowed deeply as her moist hands slowly unbuttoned Lex's shirt. She parted the cloth to reveal the chest that she had been so familiar with. He was not going to remember any of it. She ran the cool cloth down his torso. He smiled at her, and she felt the warmth settle in her belly.

Lex sat up on the bed, and lifted his hands to the bottom of her shirt. He lifted the blouse off her, then looked down at the black lace bra that cupped her breasts. "I missed you, Chloe."

She closed her eyes, and the tears fell like raindrops. "I missed you too," she finally admitted.

She unclasped her bra and allowed it to fall behind her on the bed, then helped him take his shirt off over the bandage. Chloe traced the outline of the bandage with her fingers. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head, then bent his head low to capture her lips in a kiss. Her hands curved around his head and she guided his mouth to her breast. His mouth was hot with fever, and Chloe's tears slid down her cheeks. It was a sensation she thought she would only ever relive in her dreams.

His hot hands lifted her skirt and rooted underneath for her panties. Slowly, Lex helped her take them off. Her hands on the other hand unzipped his fly and pulled down his pants.

His fevered tongue wrapping around her nipple was almost enough to send her into an orgasm. Chloe straddled Lex's thighs as he latched on to her breasts. She held onto him and guided him inside her body as she sank down on him. Chloe leaned into his ear and whispered, "If you remember anything about tonight, remember this. I loved you."

Lex thrust up into her and she moved over him.

_iAnd I don't want the world to see me  
Cause I don't think that they'd understand /i_

tbc


	9. Bring Me to Life

Part 9 Bring Me to Life

_iHow can you see into my eyes like open doors?  
Leading you down into my core  
Where I've become so numb /i_

Sunlight streamed through the windows and hit his eyelids. Lex opened his eyes and squinted against the bright light. He glanced at the clock beside his bed and blinked. It was seven thirty in the morning. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with the heel of his palm, then checked the clock again. It was seven thirty one in the morning. He had slept til this late. Usually, he would be wide awake at no later than four in the morning, body aching after the nonexistent sleep produced by his tossing and turning above the covers the entire night.

His head was clear, and he was amazed at the difference one night without any alcohol did to his thought process. It was as if part of his brain, that part that was clouded by everyone taken away from him, just fell away.

For the first time he felt like Chloe Sullivan's ghost was no longer haunting him, as if she visited him during his deep sleep and kissed all his sins away.

Lex looked up as the door to his room opened and he saw Lois trying to come in an unobtrusively as she could, her dark hair falling wetly against her cheeks. She had just had a shower. As she stepped closer towards his bedside table and laid down a glass of water and a pill, Lex noted idly that she used the same brand of shampoo that Chloe did. The scent assailed his nostrils and he waited for the deep grounding pain that accompanied any memory of Chloe. He looked at Lois in wonder when the ache did not come.

"Good morning," he greeted.

Chloe almost jumped out of her skin when his voice reached her. She had tried not to make any noise so that she would not wake him up. It had not even occurred to her that he was probably already awake. She had hoped that the pain medicine he had taken the night before would still have him knocked out this morning, so that she could avoid this—After years in his bed, Chloe feared the uncomfortable morning after.

'Please let him think it was a dream.'

_  
iWithout a soul  
My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold   
Until you find it there and lead it back home /i_

"Morning," she greeted back. She bit her lip at the sight of the small puddle she had created on the table, after the shock of hearing his voice made her hand shake. "I brought you your pain pill." Chloe handed the red tablet over to Lex. "Take it now. It says you have to drink that fifteen minutes before meals for maximum effect."

"Thanks," he answered gruffly, although it amused him that his bitter enemy had turned into his caregiver.

"Breakfast is almost done. Just step right out when you're ready." On her way out of the room, her phone rang and she took it from her jean pocket, flipped it open, and frowned. "Yeah, Clark?" she muttered quietly.

The sound of the name brought Lex's attention to Chloe. It was the man that his fiancé had left him for. Instead of the rush of fury he expected, Lex felt a tinge of regret. She slipped out of the room. He knew that she did not want him to be uncomfortable hearing her conversation with a man she knew he despised.

Lex sat up on the bed and took the pill, then he sat up and saw that he was only wearing his pajama bottoms. His lips curved. No one else but Lois Lane was with him the night before. How unsettled she must have been, having had to change his clothes. Lex threw on a shirt and walked out towards the dining room cum kitchen area. He heard the call from her end.

"No Clark. I've already sent Perry a message. I'm gonna come in after lunch, alright?" There was a pause. "No problem. Alright."

"You don't have to miss work, Lois. I'm perfectly capable of handling myself."

She jumped again and saw Lex standing by the dining room table. She put the phone away. Lex tried to pull one of the chairs out from under the table, but the leg was caught on the base of the table. Lex lifted the table a bit to free his chair and winced, then fell heavily onto the chair. She shook her head. "That doesn't look like you can handle yourself without ripping your wound open."

"The wound is still pretty fresh. There's nothing to bust open."

She turned her back to him and returned to the pan as she finished cooking. "I'm staying because it's the least I could do. After all, you saved my life."

"About that," Lex said. "You're going to have to narrate how heroic I was. It's like the entire night's been wiped from my head. I've bits and pieces here and there," he told her. "I want to know what happened, Lois, because whatever it was…" He searched for his words. "Maybe it's the blood loss but I feel like this huge burden's been taken off my shoulders."

_iWake me up inside  
Call my name and save me from the dark   
Bid my blood to run before I come undone  
Save me from the nothing I've become /i_

At those words, Chloe blinked away the tears that threatened to fall. "That's weird," she said lightly. "All that happened was I was stupid enough not to know I was being followed early enough, and out of nowhere you came in and saved me." She turned around with and glanced at him. "And got yourself shot in the process."

She turned back to the stove. Chloe remembered those words clearly, and the accompanying sensations still sent a shiver down her spine. She closed her eyes briefly.

_i"If you remember anything about tonight, remember this. I loved you."/i_

Lex sat back on the chair and watched her prepare the found. There was something familiar about the way she labored over their breakfast. Lex searched his brain for what it was. A slight breeze came in from the window and blew at her hair, drying it. Lois frowned at the disturbing hair and instead of shoving the lock away, she blew on it. The lock temporarily floated, then flopped back on her face. She blew on it again, and the same thing happened. Chloe used to have the same problem, especially because she used to keep her hair too short to tie back. Chloe always retorted when he commented on it. She always always went back to the fact that he would never have the same problem.

"Just tuck your hair behind your ear, Lois. I don't want to have nasty brunette hair in my pancakes."

She turned to him, with her eyebrows arched, then told him off. "Mind your own bald head, Luthor."

Lex froze, staring at her with a question that remained unspoken in his eyes.

Chloe walked over to Lex with two plates in her hands. She was confused at Lex's reaction, then realized why. She covered it by placing a plate on the table. When Lex inspected the pancakes, he opened his mouth to protest. Before a word left his mouth, Chloe had placed another plate right in front of Lex, this one devoid of the blueberry bits that had made Lex cringe earlier. She smiled down at him, "We wouldn't want you itchy and bloated all day." She pulled the blueberry pancakes closer to her. Chloe found the thought hilarious and chuckled. "This is mine. I love this."

_iNow that I know what I'm without  
You can't just leave me  
Breathe into me and make me real  
Bring me to life /i_

"She told you a lot about me," he told her matter-of-factly, "if even my allergies are funny to you." He took a bite and smiled.

"You're chipper," she commented, relieved that he seemed to have pushed any suspicions out of his mind.

"It was a good night. It's the first time I've felt this light." He looked up at her. "I'm not going to ruin it with any negative energy."

"Yeah, getting shot and losing a lot of blood will do that to you." Chloe glanced at the cabinet on the side of the room. "Speaking of which, since I could only get half of the day off from the Daily Planet, I have a few books that I'm sure you'd enjoy. I have a few of the newer and much less expensive releases of the titles that Chloe mentioned you kept coming back to." She pointed to the location. "I've placed them over here."

Lex glanced over and saw what in fact were his favorites. He turned back askance at Chloe and said in wonder, "I never knew that you and your cousin spoke so much that she'd have told you all this. Was there anything she didn't tell you about her life?"

_iFrozen inside without your touch  
Without your love, darling  
Only you are the life among the dead/i_

She was silent for a moment. Then she shook her head. "She's told me a lot but I wouldn't know what she's hidden. In the same vein, I've told her about a lot of things going on with me but I'd hardly say that she knew everything."

Her eyes were so gorgeous, and Lex shivered at the cold finger running down his spine at the knowledge that right now, he was staring into his dead fiance's eyes. She turned away. Lex shuddered at the unsettled feeling pooling in his gut. He had established this loathing for Lois Lane that would protect him from this—a shameful longing seated deep in his belly as Chloe's killer, bearing her eyes and revealing habits he had only seen in Chloe, armed with knowledge that Chloe had learned in their every day lives, took over the place that was left cold with Chloe's departure.

_iI've been sleeping a thousand years it seems  
Got to open my eyes to everything/i_

It was time to turn away from her as well. He was not going to fall into this trap. He would not let stray habits and those green eyes captivate him into the false belief that Chloe was right here with him. Instead of running, Lex gruffly said, "Eat your breakfast, Lois. I'll take you to the Daily Planet later if you really need to come in."

"Lex, there's really no need. Besides, you're injured. You can't drive."

"That's why I have a chauffeur on call."

"Then why do you have to come along?" she asked.

Lex took a bite of the pancake and then narrowed his eyes. "Suit yourself." Chloe started on her blueberry pancakes and Lex watched as she pushed her hair behind her ears.

_iBring me to life  
Ive been living a lie.. Theres nothing inside  
Bring me to life/i_


	10. The Scientist

Part 10 The Scientist

_iCome up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry_

_You don't know how lovely you are/i_

It was with something close to reverence that her trembling fingers traced the name on the marble. Chloe tried to swallow the lump blocking her throat, but it felt so heavy that she could do nothing but try. Chloe placed the flowers that she had brought with her in front of his name. The tears that flooded her eyes flowed freely down her cheeks.

"I'm so sorry, Eric," she choked out.

When his name left her lips, Chloe sobbed and it was hard and noisy and racking. She wrapped both of her arms around herself, hoping against hope that she would calm down and that she would not break here. Since her escape from her life with Lex, Chloe had been unable to come back to her son's grave.

She looked up at the porcelain angel looking down at her from the top of Eric's name. She could not meet its eyes. Chloe looked down and through her bleary, tear-muddled vision she saw the droplets of her tears darkening the floor.

"Eric," she whispered. "Mommy's so sorry she abandoned you here."

_iI had to find you_

_Tell you I need you_

_Tell you I set you apart/i_

Lex had not been to see her son, she was sure. When she was around she made her frequent visits to Eric's grave alone. Lex had drowned himself in his job and abandoned their son even before she did. It was not surprising that she would find out now, given the dust that covered Eric's marble memorial, that Lex had run away even before she did. Her eyes wandered briefly towards the place right beside Eric's, where her name was placed in gold cursive letters.

Her eyes fluttered closed. "Lois," she said softly. "I'm sorry I couldn't even give you the memorial you deserved."

She had screwed everything up. "What was I thinking?" Her shoulders shuddered with her grief. "Did I think that I could slip away every day for the rest of my life to visit my son without anyone knowing about it? Did I really believe that this would work, and I would live with Lex forever without his finding out who I am?"

She looked up again at her name. Below it, right under the date of her birth and the date that Lois died, was one word – Beloved. Torn between two severely opposing positions on the case, Chloe wondered if she really even wanted to hide who she was anymore. Beloved. And then she remembered how life with Lex was, of mornings when she would wake up to find him gone, of days when he would beg off from visiting their son, of nights she spent alone crying herself to sleep and midnights when she would wake up to find his hands all over her body and hear him whispering in her ear, pleading her to tell him that she was never going to leave.

_iTell me your secrets_

_And ask me your questions_

_Oh let's go back to the start/i_

Tomorrow it would be the fifth year anniversary of the night in the castle when Lex had taken her in his arms and promised a lifetime of happiness. That was the night when she agreed to be his wife. Thinking back, Chloe marveled at how, as intelligent as she was, she had been so gullible as to think that a ring and a promise ensured that life would be paradise.

But when she replayed the moment in her head, Chloe could see it clearly still. She remembered the earnest way that Lex had given her all those promises, and the tender sincerity that accompanied his voice when he told her that she would make him the happiest man on earth if only she said yes.

Back in those days Chloe had no goal other than to make Lex the happiest man on earth.

Could they have both been victims of events in their lives that controlled their choices.

"Lex didn't start out like the man that he turned out," she murmured.

Then again, she thought, neither did she.

Chloe wiped at her cheeks and dried her palms on her skirt. She stood up on the tips of her toes and placed a kiss on Eric's name. "I love you, baby." She turned around and walked towards the direction from which she came in. Chloe stopped in her tracks at the steady sound of footsteps.

_iRunning in circles_

_Coming up tails_

_Heads on a silence apart/i_

There should have been a hundred moments such as the one that he was about to experience, Lex thought to himself as he parked his car in front of the wide grassy expanse that he had last visited two years ago, in a time devastating to both himself and Chloe. The last time he had been here, dozens of photographers lined the cordoned plot, and hundreds of LexCorp employees crowded to show their support. He had held himself well, his only focus to remain in control the way Chloe was not. For each tear she had shed that morning, Lex returned with a firm hand on her elbow, straightening his stance so that no one else would be privy to the desolation that only parents could feel when they lost a child. He should have been back, even if it was for that one time when another member of his family was immortalized there.

It was a visit he would have escaped has Lois not put her foot down and told him not to take her to the Daily Planet. He was free, he realized when he woke up this morning. He had been freed from the dark rails that had been surrounding him since his son died. Even so, he knew that he would not completely be able to go back to his life if he did not come back here.

Today, as he walked across the grassy lawn towards the mausoleum, Lex prepared himself to see Chloe's name on marble for the first time. He let himself into the cold building. As he passed the names of the Luthors who had come before him, Lex skimmed through. He paused for a moment in front of where his mother rested, then swallowed. Eric was at the end of the first aisle. Right beside him was a marble slab that held Chloe's name. He was a coward. He knew all these but had never been there. Even the print on the marble had taken him seventeen days to send out.

_iNobody said it was easy_

_It's such a shame for us to part_

_Nobody said it was easy_

_No one ever said it would be this hard/i_

When Lex got closer to Eric's grave, his eyebrows furrowed at the sight of fresh flowers sitting there. He looked around for anyone who had just left, but found the place empty. His shoe slid on something on the floor. Lex looked down to see what looked like teardrops.

And then he heard the sound of heels as the visitor started running. Lex started after the noise. He saw the flash of dark hair round the corner, and Lex took a shortcut through the hall where his grandparents lay. That was when he saw her silhouetted against the bright noon sun.

"Wait!" he cried.

She whirled around and stopped, her features shadowed with the sun behind her. Lex registered the shape of her body and the dark trim of her work clothes, and he could swear for that one split second, he thought he was seeing a ghost.

_iOh take me back to the start/i_

And on that moment he was as frozen to the spot as she was, as he took in the silhouette that he had dreamed of seeing again, if only for one more time. It was the same silhouette that he had become used to in the early days of their relationship, when after a long night in conference calls he would stay in bed and she would get ready for the office. She was always running late. On those days she would give him a quick peck on the cheek and run to the door. Always, when he called out to her, he would say, "Love you, babe."

Right at the door she would stop and turn around, then smile at him. He knew she was smiling even though he could not really see. She would be standing against the light, and her silhouette would be etched in his brain even as he drifted off to sleep again.

i_I was just guessing_

_At numbers and figures_

_Pulling your puzzles apart/i_

"Lex," she said breathlessly.

"Why were you running?" he asked gruffly.

"Because I'm expected at work," was her simple answer.

He walked over towards her. "Is this why you didn't want me to take you? You didn't want me to know that you'd come here?"

"I didn't see the need to unearth past hurts."

He nodded. "Be careful, Lois."

She turned around and walked away from him. Lex watched as she grew smaller and smaller in his line of vision. He watched her get into the car and leave. Only then did he turn around and walked back inside.

_iQuestions of science_

_Science and progress_

_Do not speak as loud as my heart/i_

He stood in silence in front of his family. If someone told him five years ago that he would have had a son and Chloe Sullivan as his fiancé, he would have grinned, because it was exactly the future that he had planned. It was certain it would come true, because he wanted it. However, if someone had told him that this would be his future—standing in front of their graves while the woman he despised for Chloe's death would be living in his apartment, haunting him with her presence—he would have attacked him.

He said nothing. People said that it was best to walk even to your dead. It allowed you to unload some of the burden in your heart. Lex had nothing to unload anymore. He only had a wish.

If it was impossible, then it was best not to say it.

_iTell me you love me_

_Come back and haunt me_

_Oh and I rush to the start/i_

He stayed for an hour, then as silently as he came, he left. He got into his car. Despite Lois' words not to handle a car, Lex found himself able to drive around with some pain that he could grit his teeth through.

He was not going to do it. It was pathetic and a step back in his progress. Still he found himself driving down a familiar road. He stopped in front of the building and pressed the same familiar floor.

_iRunning in circles_

_Chasing our tails_

_Coming back as we are/i_

When he got off the elevator, a hushed murmur came in the room. His eyes searched for her and he walked over. Clark stood right beside her, and Lex shut out his presence. When she finally looked up and saw him, Lex could not help but drink the sight of Chloe's green eyes.

_iNobody said it was easy_

_Oh it's such a shame for us to part/i_

"Tomorrow," he rasped.

Chloe nodded, knowing what he needed, needing to hear it from him.

"Tomorrow is an important date in my life," he told her. "I'd appreciate it," he managed, "if you can keep me from spending it alone." Lex swallowed painfully.

Tears filled Chloe's eyes. Asking for someone else to help him through a tough time… it was something her Lex never did… could not bring himself to do.

_iNobody said it was easy_

_No one ever said it would be so hard/i_

She gave him a bright smile. "I'll stay with you tomorrow, Lex."

_iI'm going back to the start/i_

tbc


	11. In the Air Tonight

Part 11 In the Air Tonight

_[iI can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord__I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh lord[/i_

Chloe applied the lipstick over her lips and took a deep breath. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and realized for the first time that she no longer frowned and took a second look to verify that she was looking at herself. Her fingers fluttered towards where the skin was fully healed at her hairline. There were no more traces of the procedure. Should she wake up one day with no memory of her surgery, she could live her whole life without anyone knowing.

She stepped back from the mirror and took another breath again. It was five minutes to pick up time, and she was nervous.

_[iCan you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord[/i_

The knock on the door was brief. She walked over and opened the door to reveal Lex Luthor standing outside. Chloe was taken back to the first time that Lex stood outside her door like that, long ago before reality took away her innocence, before Lex, before Eric, before… life happened.

Lex smiled at the sight of her. "Thank you for doing this," he whispered into her ear as he bent to kiss her cheek._[iWell, if you told me you were drowning__I would not lend a hand__I've seen your face before my friend__But I don't know if you know who I am[/i_

"What's the occasion?" she clarified again as she fell into step beside him on their way to the dining room.

He led her towards their table. When she looked up, she saw sadness flit quickly in his eyes. Chloe started, suddenly filled with shame. Her lips grew numb, and she clutched tightly at her napkin.

Had she lost her heart after everything?_[iWell, I was there and I saw what you did__I saw it with my own two eyes[/i_

On this day, once upon a time, they celebrated the happiest event in their lives and greeted Eric into the world.

"I can't even begin to explain it," he murmured, taking the seat across from her.

Chloe slowly turned her eyes to meet his, then averted them. Once upon a time at a setting much like this, she stood while he knelt sobbing into her thighs and begging her not to leave him.

_[iSo you can wipe off the grin, I know where you've been[/i_

And she had run to the man he hated, lay in his bed and let him fuck her.

_[iIt's all been a pack of lies[/i_

"Lex," she began, her voice hoarse, "I don't think I can do this. I don't feel well."

To her surprise, he reached out and covered her hand in his. "Lois, please. I need not to be alone tonight."

She shook her head. "It's too much on me."

"If I'm alone tonight, I'm going to sink to the same depths I used to sink into," he admitted, albeit reluctantly. "Tonight I need your help." She was lost in his pleading gaze. "Maybe tonight I'm not a childless father or a wifeless husband. Maybe tonight I'm not a successful man who lost the most important deal of his life."

"But I'm still me," she protested, "and you despise me. You can't really want to choose me to spend tonight with."

His lips curved. "It's a choice between you and contemplating my black soul over scotch and a loaded gun, just like all the other years."

"At least I'm better than the prospect of shooting yourself in the head," she teased lightly.

"Maybe if tonight you're not Chloe's cousin—"

"Then who am I tonight?" she asked.

"Maybe tonight you can just be a friend."_[iAnd I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord__I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh lord__I can feel it in the air tonight, oh lord[/i_

"I'd like that."

And she wondered, what if—What if she let herself be taken by the warm sincerity in his eyes that told her as that he would not say? What if she forgot too, the way he seemed so intent to do? It seemed so easy. Slowly, her eyes drifted closed, and she felt his hand over hers tighten briefly then release.

_[iWell I remember, I remember, don't worry__How could I ever forget, it's the first time__The last time we ever met[/i_

"Lois," he called softly.

For that moment, it almost seemed like he really said her name. Chloe opened her eyes to see Lex looking at her so intently. So many moments like those not so long ago.

"It's not the end of the world if we forget," he told her. "Maybe tomorrow we can go back."

To hating each other.

To cursing a woman he thought was dead.

To accepting that even now, despite what she had done, he was, and always will be obsessed.

"Alright," she said.

Lex nodded and poured her a glass of wine. "How are you enjoying your new job?"

"Perry is wonderful," she began. Then she remembered that Lex had met his editor-in-chief before, and saw the doubtful arch of his eyebrow. "He is," she repeated, chuckling. "He's temperamental, completely neurotic and downright obnoxious. I adore the old guy."

"No wonder," he returned.

"I'm gonna be like him someday," she joked.

"He sounds like a dream," he drawled.

"He sent me on one of those fluff piece assignments to cover the world's biggest ricecake," she related. "He made it sound like there was a huge drug bust in Chinatown last week. And then I was on a five-hour ride through wheat and rice paddies." Lois recalled the moment of sinking clarity when she realized what Perry had signed her up for. "The moment I got off the car and saw the festive decorations and the gigantic oven, I knew." Her eyes narrowed in recollection.

"I bet you gave him an earful."

"I got into the car for the five-hour drive back." Then she smirked. "I knew he was at home having lunch with his wife, trying to win her back after his eleven hundredth screw up."

"This sounds evil."

"He never turns off his machine in case there's a breaking story."

Lex laughed. "You did not."

She nodded. "I did. I know how to leave fake love messages and sound like I mean it." She sipped her champagne. "I doubt he'd do it again."

"He probably still would just to get right back at you. I remember Chloe once said…" and his voice trailed off.

She looked up at him, and saw the look of surprise in his face, as if he regretted having slipped. "It's okay, you know. You can talk about her."

"No." He shook his head sharply. "I can't."

_[iBut I know the reason why you keep your silence up__No you don't fool me__The hurt doesn't show, but the pain still grows__It's no stranger to you or me[/i_

"Lex," she began. But it was so easy to see that she had already lost him tonight.

Chloe placed down her glass and tossed her napkin back on the table. He seemed so young, so devastated. She stood up, and he looked up at her in question. She walked over to where he sat and closed her hand over his, then pulled him up.

"I thought tonight would be different," she said softly up at him.

Lex looked down at her, and she could swear that she saw him look at her like the way he used to, with something a lot like love. "I needed it to be."_[iAnd I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord__But I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh lord__I can feel it in the air tonight, oh lord[/i_"I'm never going to escape her, Lois."

She reached up her hand and cupped his face. She leaned up and pulled down his face for a brief kiss.

"I'm never going to want to," he continued, looking down at her puzzled.

"You don't have to," she whispered, her breath brushing against his moist lips. Chloe pulled him down again for another kiss, this time longer, deeper. Her hands slipped down to his belt and deftly undid it. "Let me do this." She helped him get off his pants.

He took her hand and pulled. "Let's go to the bedroom."

"No," she protested sharply. "Not the bedroom." She reached up and unhooked the clasp at the back of her dress, and allowed it to fall to the dining room floor. Chloe stood in front of him in her panties and a simple gold necklace.

Lex bent down and kissed the crook of her neck. His hand made its way to her breast and cupped, massaging it until her nipple was peaked. He backed her towards the window. They were soon engulfed by the thick curtains until they were almost invisible if not for their frantic motions.

As she arched her back to give him access to her aching breast, she worked her panties off. And then she was holding him in her hand. She felt him so strained and tensed. Chloe lifted one leg up and hooked it on his hips. She positioned him at her entrance.

"Lois." He hesitated, and looked up into her eyes. And it was sick, because he was looking into Chloe, and sinking into someone else. She nodded, and it looked to his dazed mind that she was someone else, and that this would really be okay. He intertwined his fingers with hers and held on. He drove home. She gasped and he squeezed his eyes tightly, his hips moving in a frantic rhythm, searching and pounding and reaching.

"Lex, more." She wanted to wrap her arms around him, rest her hands on his shoulders and rub the tension that she felt. Instead, his hands were tight as they clutched hers and pressed them against the moist glass. It was painful, and the most glorious experience she had ever had. He was inside her over and over and over, hitting the places she had never dreamed he would ever be again. The edges of her vision blacked and she released so violently she shuddered and screamed quietly, melting against the window, against his body, liquefied.

As she sagged against him, Lex released her hand and felt it come around his back, clutching at him, her nails sliding against the sweat. With his free hand he reached for her other thigh and placed her leg around his waist. With the new depth, he felt her grow tighter and even slicker. He rested his forehead against the cool window and pounded faster and heavier.

As elusive as it was, his climax shattered him when he finally found it. He pumped himself inside her continuously until he had nothing more. He was so sated that he melted onto his knees, taking her along with him. Breathing heavily, he lay down on the hardwood floor with Lois lying boneless against him.

He looked down at the dark head resting against his chest. He placed a kiss on the top of her head and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry for doing that," he rasped.

Chloe heard the words and swallowed, then her eyes drifted closed and a tear slid down the edge of her eye and dropped onto his skin.

_[i__I've been waiting for this moment for all my life__[/i_


	12. Yellow

Part 12 Yellow

He awoke with her in his arms still, and she was familiar. His arm wrapped around her waist, with his face buried in her hair, and he could almost pretend that she was who she should have been. It was so easy to get lost in her warmth, and he could begin his life again. Every woman's body was no different than the next right? How easy would it be, he wondered, to imagine another woman's face when he said 'I love you?'

His eyes drifted closed, and he held on to her, breathed in the scent of her hair and listened to the world around him.

"Lex, are you awake?" she said softly, her voice tickling his chest.

His breath hitched, because in his imagination he had transformed even her voice. 'Chloe,' brushed by in his mind's voice. His eyebrows furrowed. His will had overcome his senses, and he could so happily fool his brain. He did not move, savoring that elusive moment when he was with her again, even if it was all make-believe.

_[iLook at the stars,__Look how they shine for you,__And everything you do__Yeah, they were all yellow.[/i_

He felt her sigh against his body. He expected her to rise, extricate herself—maybe walk away to the bedroom and throw up in the toilet bowl. Instead, he felt her arms wrap even more tightly around him. He felt her burrow deeper into him and brush and butterfly kiss against his skin, right by his heart.

He tensed at the movement, and then he felt a small pool of warm liquid gather against his skin. He heard the muffled sound of a sniffle. He remained still.

It took a few minutes, but then she hastily stood up, leaving him colder than he had been in that momentary stolen embrace. She did not look back at him. For all she knew, he was asleep still. Lex watched as she threw the dress on and run to the stairs. He sat up and stared at the empty door.

He stood slowly and gathered his discarded clothes. His movements were numbered as he dressed and proceeded to toast some bread and prepare coffee. He poured a cup and stood there, sipping the hot liquid.

_[iI came along,__I wrote a song for you,__And all the things you do,__And it was called "Yellow."[/i_

And then she walked in, freshly showered and wearing office clothes. She met his eyes with no expression. He turned and poured a cup for her, then handed it over.

"Thanks," she replied tersely. She lifted it up to sip, and then frowned. She looked up towards the cupboards. Lex lifted his hand, and then pushed a small saucer towards her. There was one cube of sugar. Slowly, her gaze lifted towards him. He met her stare, and she swallowed. She reached for the saucer, then pushed it away.

Lex shook his head. "Take it." He dropped the cube into her cup, then stirred. "I'm sure you take it like this."

"Thank you," she whispered._[iSo then I took my turn,__Oh what a thing took done,__And it was all yellow.[/i_

His mind raced, wanting to do so much, yet at the same time wanting to remain there, sweeping her entire body with his eyes, looking at each shadow on her face. Lex picked up his coffee cup and sat right across from her at the table.

And that moment was heaven.

He stared at her lips, devoid of lipstick, and how the coffee clung to those lips like dark dew. She bit her bottom lip, and they were redder than he remembered, but not as red as the night before when he fed on them like berries.

She took a deep breath, and his eyes drifted down to her chest, full and lovely, but less than what they were when he ran his tongue over them.

Last night and all the other nights before.

_[iYour skin__Oh yeah, your skin and bones,__Turned into something beautiful,__You know I love you so.[/i_

She placed down her cup, and she looked up into his unwavering gaze. She said, "I have to go."

His nod was sharp. "I know."

She picked up her bag from the table and left. Lex closed his eyes when the door slammed shut.

She had to go.

Chloe closed the door behind her and leaned back, then let out the deep breath she had been keeping in. The air left her body in an audible sob. She bent her head back and stared at the white lights on the corridor ceiling. All she could see now were spots of hazy white where the lights used to be.

She had to go.

There was no doubt about it, in her mind or his. The tears flowed freely and she sobbed until her body was racked with the emotion.

She could not have come at all, not have stepped in his house, not have returned to the same state. She learned early in life that she did not deserve the life she had fooled herself into believing she could still have._[iI swam across,__I jumped across for you,__Oh what a thing to do.__Cuz you were all yellow,[/i_

Chloe took a deep, cleansing breath, hugged her bag to her body, then entered the elevator. She hailed a cab and rested her head back.

The brick houses and condominiums flew by. Her cab stopped in the newspaper office building. Chloe got off and proceeded to her floor. She knocked on Perry's door.

When the editor saw her, he waved her inside. She turned to him and saw the intent look in his face.

"You have to go," he read.

Chloe nodded. "I couldn't without telling you." He smiled sadly. "I'm so ashamed. You gave me a change that other journalists would kill for, and I'm gonna blow it away."

He shook his head. "It's not yet done, Lane." He winked. "I knew a guy who upped and left at the height of his infamy, found himself, then came back and settled into a comfortable desk job."

That drew a reluctant smile from her. She remembered meeting him when she was a child and he was lost. "So you think I just have to find myself."

"I know you have to find yourself." Perry leaned back in his chair. "Now I'm not going to hold your desk," he told her. "Overhead and all."

She nodded. "Of course."

"But you're always going to be welcome, Lane."

She left Perry's office with her heart a little lighter. Chloe went over to her desk and sat down. Chloe looked around her and took in the bustling newsroom. The mailroom attendant pushed a cart of packages around the office. Jimmy Olsen came running in with two photographs in hand, looking very anxious to display them in front of the chief. He saw her looking, and he broke into an infatuated grin then waved at her. He always had a thing for her, she thought—whatever her face had. She waved back and watched him knock on the chief's door.

When she turned, she saw an fresh new intern come in with her head held high and her notebook in hand. How long had it been when she herself came in the same way.

Once upon a time, this had been her dream. She had put everyone in her life on the sidelines to pursue the career. Over time, she lived very different lives and this remained a constant. Now it was time to give it up.

She opened the drawer and picked up her passport.

"Perry says you're leaving."

_ [iI drew a line,__I drew a line for you,__Oh what a thing to do,__And it was all yellow.[/i_Chloe looked up to see Clark Kent standing in front of her. "You can celebrate on your own time," she retorted.

Clark shook his head. "Do I look like I'm celebrating?"

"Then why are you here?"

He sat down in front of her and shook his head. "I don't understand why you're so against me." And then he gave a self-deprecating chuckle. "Alright I do. I did tell you that you killed your cousin." Chloe watched the play of emotions on his face. "Would it help if I apologized and told me you that every action, every word, every glare—"

"Was because of Chloe?" she continued.

"No," he answered. "They were all me," he admitted. "But I was in mourning. I could have saved her, but I was too hurt to come for her myself."

_[iFor you I'd bleed myself dry.[/i_

"I was so in love." He smiled. "And I still believe she was going to come back to me if she hadn't died."

Chloe looked at Clark, suddenly with eyes that were uncertain. "Didn't she make it clear that she didn't love you?"

"When you're in love…" his voice trailed off. "I think I'm going to have to start falling out."

_[iLook at the stars;__Look how they shine for you,__And all the things that you do.[/i_

Chloe stood up and walked around the desk. She stood on tiptoes and gave Clark a hug. "I guess it was a possibility. She always did think highly of you."

"Hey I needed that. Thanks, Lois. Stay safe."

"I will. And I'm sure I can always call you when I need you."

"Always."

_[i__And they were all yellow…[/i_

Two nights passed and an ocean between them, she was yet again another woman, another name. She wrapped the shawl even tighter around her body and quickened her pace. Streets at night, as peaceful as they were, hid dangers in every corner. One man had tried to kill her on the street once; it would not happen again. She had to be vigilant. There was no one else she could count on. Not anymore.

Chloe had to learn to live her life alone.

It was small payment for stealing another person's life.

tbc


	13. Disaster

Part 13 Disaster

_i She's so far gone  
I can't help her  
She can't stay in control /i  
_

Perhaps it was the only way she could pay tribute to a life cut short; perhaps it was a way to temper the guilt she felt for not having done the job as well as she could have had she not been overwhelmed with her own life the last time she was here; or perhaps, and most likely, this was the only place she could run to where Lex's influence would not reach.

Either way, Chloe found that the last four years she had spent working with children of Lipaztan's genocide victims was the closest she had been to heaven—the feel of a young boy clutching her shoulders as he screamed for his dead mother while volunteer doctors extricated a shrapnel from his flesh was more welcome to her now than the suffocating pleasure of lying in Lex's arms while he called her by her cousin's name.

i _This time I worry about her  
But I won't go back to that world_ /i

The blood around her took her closer to Lois on those last moments. The children's tears took her to her son.

Yes, she thought, as another child was brought in with his arm hanging limply to his side as he screamed in pain.

Chloe reached for the child and placed him on a makeshift cot. "Completely out of the socket," Lydia told her.

Yes, she was in heaven.

i _You're a disaster  
But you make me happy  
Laughter is so hard  
Disaster, I won't let this kill you  
The past hurts but we'll move on _/i

On her second week in Lipaztan, she turned on the television in the small camp and watched the news. That early in her self-imposed exile, Chloe thought it would help her to hear news from home. She watched the news of hurricanes in the Midwest, and she wondered briefly if the farms of her childhood have been affected. And then she watched gossip on celebrities who got together and was saddened for them.

They were happy now. She hoped they weren't too happy.

It hurt more when you fell from such heights.

"That's so romantic."

Chloe turned around and saw Lydia sitting on a plastic chair. She had been alone when she started watching. Now there was company. Lydia graduated nursing six months ago, and went on to work in one of the most prestigious hospitals in LA. When Lydia arrived with her, Chloe had asked her what she was running from. To her surprise, Lydia told her she was running to the devastation, not from anyone or anything from her past.

Chloe smiled thinly. "After everything you've seen, that word is still in your vocabulary?" she asked.

"After everything we've seen here,' Lydia answered, "you better etch that word into your brain. I'll keep you sane."

"They'll be divorced in a year, with a keep to shuttle around, and fighting for their meager assets."

i _She's reckless  
One can not face it  
She barely has a soul  
I tried to warn her  
But she lives in her own crazy world_ /i

Chloe flipped the channel and stopped at the still photograph on the screen. Even from so far away, he could take her breath away. He had made a generous donation to the campaign of Pete Ross, dragging to the surface long forgotten suspicions that he had a hand in the fiery death of Lana Lang Ross.

"He's going to serve jail time," Lydia said, breaking the heavy silence.

Chloe turned to the other woman. "Why?"

"Insider trading? Murder?" Lydia tried. "They haven't made it public. I bet it has something to do with Mrs Ross."

i _You're obsessed I must confess  
You're never gonna change  
Angel, I can't lose you_ /i

If it was, Chloe thought that maybe it should be herself imprisoned. There was a loud explosion that jerked her out of her reverie. Someone screamed. The television died. She and Lydia both came running out of the small shelter and saw the smoking hut a few yards away from them.

A few people from their group were starting to pull injured volunteers out of the shelter. Chloe assessed the wounds of the first victim. Even from the distance she could tell that he was going to lose an eye.

And then she felt better, because this heaven was worse than any prison Lex could find himself in.

Maybe someday she would get lucky, and attacks like that would fall directly on her head.

i _You're a disaster  
But you make me happy  
Laughter is so hard  
Disaster I won't let this kill you  
The past hurts but we'll move on_ /i

No matter how many of these she'd set, Chloe could not help her hands from trembling when she heard a young person scream while she held him. Eric would never have suffered like this. No, Lex Luthor's son would never cry like this from pain.

Lex Luthor's son died peacefully in his sleep.

And that was when she found herself tearing up. "You never had a chance," she said softly to the little boy, who could not understand her anyway. She sniffled.

A hand closed over her shoulder. She looked behind her and saw one of the visiting doctors. "I'll handle this," he told her.

"I can do this," she assured him.

"You have a guest," he told her. "Freshen up. He's waiting in the main office."

Chloe grimaced at the words. He almost made it sound as if they were back in civilization, and the main office was not a makeshift cabin with a door, and her guest was waiting in the parlor. Over the months, Chloe had fielded off different journalists who dropped by offering to create a documentary on her experience.

She was a journalist once. She knew what that entailed. She wasn't willing to answer their questions on her reasons for coming here.

Chloe nodded and left her station with one last look at the crying little boy. She walked out of the clinic and jogged towards the main office. Automatically, she reached for the band that held her hair up. This was how they freshened up out here. She shook the blonde hair free of knots, then tied it again. Out here, no one minded that a few months after she joined, half of her hair grew blonde while the ends remained a fading brown.

She pushed the door open. The visitor turned around. Chloe took a step back, then another. Chloe closed the door and started stalking back to the clinic.

"Chloe!"

She stopped still, under the sun; with no walls between them, she felt exposed. She had never thought to hear that name again coming from his lips.

i _I find it funny how you think I've been blind  
All this time  
I know you love me but you made me decide  
You're not my kind_ /i

She did not turn around. Maybe if she closed her eyes long enough, he would be gone. Chloe counted in her head. Maybe if she reached a hundred, he would have disappeared. She was barely at twenty when she felt his hands close around her shoulders.

i _You keep running away from our lives  
Well you're going in circles  
So stop acting like you don't care  
I won't be there for you_ /i

"It's done," he said softly.

"What?" she asked, not turning around.

"Everything that I thought I'd done. It wasn't me, Chloe. I didn't kill Lana." He took a deep breath. "It took years, and I didn't fight it." He leaned to whisper into her ear, "Come home."

"When?" Chloe asked. Finally, she turned around, and Lex knew she was not asking about coming home.

He shook his head. "There wasn't an epiphany. It was slow and excruciating, one detail on top of another." He ran his fingers through the hair that he had missed so much. "But I was sure the last night, when I realized I'd fallen in love again. I knew it had to be you."

i _You're a disaster  
But you make me happy  
Laughter is so hard  
Disaster I won't let this kill you  
The past hurts but we'll move on_ /i

And his words were real, she could see it in his eyes. Chloe's eyes filled with tears. "Then why did you let me go?"

He took her in his arms. "Because you needed to," he said into her hair. "You were so lost."

She took a deep, shuddering breath. She confessed, "Nothing's changed. I still feel that it's wrong for me to be here, alive."

His arms tightened around her.

"I'm afraid about what I'll do."

From obsession after obsession that he'd learned to live through, Lex knew that this was just another one that he would decide to take on. She'd fought against his control, and now, she would learn to depend on it. "You'll be fine."

_i Disaster I won't let this kill you /i_

fin


End file.
